
Class, /_// f cOc3t:%J 
Book z_x_____x-~ 



, 



IJatsi Ua : 



A TALE OF PALESTINE 



■ 
BY J/ TAAFFE, ESQ. 



LONDON: 

FEINTED FOR J. M. RICHARDSON, CORNHILL. 
1816. 



/ 






ADVERTISEMENT. 



This Tale is intended as a relation of the life of a 
young Spaniard, and of his catastrophe in the battle 
of Tiberias, shortly after the conquest of Jerusalem. 
He bore the Oriflamb, or standard of St. Dennis, under 
Hugh-of-Tabary, when, contrary to the injunctions of 
Godfrey-de-Bouillon, that prince hazarded an action. 
Saladin with his Saracens was victorious. The gene- 
rous Saladin was always as noble in victory as he was 
mighty in the combat : it is to be lamented, that the 
crusaders deemed it derogatory to imitate even the vir- 
tues of an enemy. As to the crusades themselves, I 
neither condemn nor justify them: perhaps to repel 
the Turks from Christendom it was necessary to in- 
vade Asia ; yet the final achievement bore a miserable 
proportion to the immensity of the means employed : 
perhaps a profuse letting of blood was requisite to 
that age of grossness ; certain it is, that those strange 
expeditions were not in the end unsalutary to Europe ; 
from her disasters in Holy Land she reaped advantages, 
political and moral, which, in all probability, could 
never have arisen from her success. 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

In every point of view, the close of the eleventh, 
and the opening- of the twelfth century, present a 
most interesting scene of medley. It was the age of 
crusades both in Palestine and in Spain ; it was the 
dawn of letters — in the quaint logic of Bernard and 
Abeillard— in Eloisa's fervid imagination — and the 
earliest songs of the Trouveurs and Troubadours ; it 
was the age of easy belief — of the papal might — of 
love high exalted— of chivalry — and of its most puis- 
sant heroes — Tancred, Raymond, Henriquez, God- 
frey, and the Cid — Rodrigo Dias de Rivar — the Cam- 
peador — the blessed Cid. 

See Mr. Southey's incomparable translation of the 
Chronicle. 

February 10, 1815. 



ERRATUxM. 

Page 9, Line 19 — for Guimaras, read Guimaraousv 



Gentle Reader, about to honor the following pages with thine 
eye, earnestly art thou intreated to begin with correction of the 
hideous Errata — for which the Printer will probably plead the 
Author's absence, and against which the Author hoped he had a 
sufficient guarantee in the fairness of his M.S. — He was upon 
the banks of the Arno, and inhabiting the very apartment where 
Alfieri acted Saul for the last time, when his glance fell upon the 
passage in that singular man's life : — " Chi lascia dei Manoscritti 
non lascia mai libri : Nessun libro essendo veramente fatto e 
compito, s'egli non e con somma diligenza stampato, riveduto e 
limato, sotto il torchio, direi, dall'Autore medesimo. II libro 
puo anche non esser fato ne compito a dispetto di tutte queste di- 
ligenze ; pur troppo e cosi ; ma non lo puo certo essere veramente 
senz'esse." What better comment than the arrival of such a vo- 
lume the morning after by the Courier of France? 



Page 8 line 


16 For female hand Read female hands 


9 . . 


17 


many a clime ; 


many a clime, 


9 . . 


19 


Guimaraes 


Guimaraes 


9 . . 


25 


had writ 


had writ. 


10 , . 


2 


Sertorious 


Sertorius 


11 . . 


2 


Youths befel ; 


Youths befel, 


11 . . 


3 


honor'd train, 


honor'd train ; - 
milky blow 


16 . . 


1 


Milky blow, 


. . 16 . . 


12 


Find 


Finds 


IT . . 


4 


ever-during smile. 


ever-during smile: 


19 last line 


on her ears, 


on her ears: 


20 . . 


6 


wring'd 


wing'd 


23 . . 


9 


the western 


a western 


25 last line 


fai: 


fair: 


37 . . 


10 


Sobreira's 


Sobreiras 


. . 37 . . 


21 


- fruits, and blooms the 


- fruits and blooms, the 


• . 39 


21 


play 


pay 


. . 42 . • 


13 


ribbans 


ribbons 


43 . . 


3 


and th'Knight 


the Knight 


. . 44 . . 


9 


Knght 


Knight 


. . 46 . . 


12 


fav'rite son ; 


fav'rite son 


46 . . 


16 


th' pomp 


the pomp 


. . 52 . . 


16 


Gariffa's 


Tariffa's 


. . 55 . . 


10 


boar; 


bore ; 


. . 58 . . 


22 


Come 


comes 


60 . . 


3 


wary 


wavy 


. . 63 . . 


9 


welcom'd so ; 


welcom'd so 


... 64 . . 


8 


E'en thou 


E'en then 


... 64 


20 


torture-cry. 


torture cry 


. . 67 


8 


acid 


acrid - 


67 . . 


12 


is inclin'd 


.his inclin'd 


. . 68 . . 


22 


Spain's war-a^ 


Spain was a 


. . 69 . . 


9 


Adjur'd-be tho'uvadjur'd 


Adjur'd-be thou adjured 


. . 70 . . 


7 


though 


* thou 


73 . . 


12 


only meets 


only wreaths 


. . 74 . . 


21 


her woes, her 


her woe, is her 


. . 75 . . 


10 


Stuck 


Struck 


76 . . 


1 


uncooth 


uncouth 


• . 76 . . 


10 


of the North : 


of the North, 


. . 77 . . 


9 


where the flame 


when the flame 


88 . . 


3 


the doom 


her doom 



11 



Page 90 


line 17 


For awhile the gates Read awide the gates 


. . 91 


. . 7 


did yet 


yet did 


93 


. . 7 


toward 


coward 


95 


7 


expire 'pon 


expire upon 


. . 95 


. . 13 


Padilla, nor 


Padilla held, nor 


. . 97 


9 


'Til 


Till 


. . 99 


. . 12 


in Bysantium's 


on Bysanti u m 


. . 99 


. . 15 


Albars. 


Abars. 


. . 100 


6 


Her fears, her griefs, 


Her griefs, her fears. 


. . 104 


. . 10 


that holy 


their holy 


. . Ill 


8 


woop 


whoop 


. . 115 


6 


Burnt 


Burst 


. . 119 


2 


wary 


wavy 


. . 120 


. . 19 


wining 


whining 


. . 122 


3 


Stung 


Strung 


. . 126 


5 


nor less 


nor bless 


. . 127 


. . 22 


thy flower 


my flower 


. . 128 


3 


though 


through 


. . 133 


. . 18 


ebby 


eddy 


. . 134 


. . 14 


In Josaphat 


And Josaphat 


. . 139 


. . 10 


Saladin 


Saladin 


. : 145 


. . 13 


own pang 


one pang 


. . 160 


. . 31 


head 


heart 


. . 161 


. . 18 


longer 


long 


. . 170 


. . 1 


this day 


his day 


. . 179 


. . 23 


order of 


orders of 


. . 189 


7 


Pona 


Pena 


. . 192 


4 


wages 


usages 


. . 192 


. . 22 


was not 


was one 


. . 199 


last line 


his armour 


their armour. 


. . 206 


6 


introduces 


introduced 


. . 206 


. . 21 


tenderness of her 


tenderness for her 


. . 213 


3 


endeared to 


endeared by 


. . 213 


. . 16 


would record 


could record 


. . 214 


5 


means 


mean 


. . 220 


. . 24 


then 


them 


. . 222 


. . 17 


Such was 


Such were 


. . 242 


. . 4 


by advancing 


and by advancing 


. . 245 


. . 29 


This 


His 


. . 257 


4 


diflficilcs 


difficilis 


. • 257 


6 


planicieo 


planicies 


. . 257 


. . 11 


Terre Sancte 


Terras Sanctae 



There are many other less important errors, particularly in the punctua- 
tion ; but no farther shall thy longanimity be trespassed upon than is abso 
lutely necessary. 



PADILLA; 
A TALE OF PALESTINE. 



CANTO I. 



PADILLA. 



Ohide not th' attempt my anguish to repress, 

Nor deem, fair trav'ller, that I feel the less. 1 

To Scotland, thine, and thee — but not yet this, 

Not yet farewel, not yet — there still are hours 

For Fancy's decking, though with short-liv'd flowers 

Well with us, Lady, may my tale agree ; 

'Tis sad and tender, like my thoughts on thee. 



II. 



Mueh Christendom, though vainly, wept the hour, 
When the cross bent, and rose the crescent's power : 
With impious valour there the Soldan stood, 
Dying his paynim scimitar in blood. 

b 2 



4 PADILLA. Canto t* 

Where were ye warriors ? — In the bright career 
Beat your big hearts with ardour less sincere ; 
Forgetful of the day, when Godfrey led 
His mail-clad heroes o'er the hills of dead, 
Waving in triumph, through the battle-gloom, 
Your Christian banner, by the Saviour's tomb $ 
No ! — Ye were brave, though impotently brave> 
Your relics slumber in no honor'd grave ; 
None swerv'd of all the flowers of chivalry, 
None, save the foremost flower, entitled high 2 
Of both the Gallilees and Tabary. 

The Soldanj on his throne, with gen'rous pride> 
Mid all his viziers, sate him by his side : 
Thrice twenty days the Saracens prolong 
Their gorgeous presents, made with prayer and song ; 
The next — and Saladin is hail'd on high. 
In habit meet— a flower of chivalry ! 

Blush, knighthood, blush ! for all thy honors stain'd , 
And sacred rites, by heathen hands profan'd : 
The bath, the coif, the robes of virgin white, 
The dark^brown sandals, and the faulchion bright ; 
The vest of crimson, with the zone of steel, 
And gilded spurs, that buckled on his heel ! — 
That lord of Gallilee may lightly feel ; 



Canto I. PADILLA. 5 

But, what atones, whatever could atone, 
For knighthood's shame ? for Christendom's bemoan ? 
What nightly pilgrim pass'd Tiberia's brim, 
Had seen, and quak'd to see, their tainted corpses swim. 
Whose crests, whose chivalry were brightest there ? 
Who wore the spurs ? or who deserv'd to wear ? 
Who bore the oriflamb ? To whom belong 
The martial story and the poet's song ? 
Alonzo — Alonzo hotliest urg'd the fight, 
Despair adventuring more than valour might. 

Nor deem, fair Lady, mine — his sorrows light ! 
E'en he, the rugged Saracen, whose cheek 
The scar of Time and faulchion- fractures streak; 
(Seeming, like bastions, by his soul to glare 
And frown defiance to all feeling there.) 
E'en he — wiping the moisture from his spear, 
Hath almost smil'd, in finding it a tear. 

III. 

'Twas Spain — Valencia — lovely Teruel, 
That softly echoes Guadalaviar's swell: 
Who in Alcazar there his sire might be ? 
" Castro-pf-the-rings," the Cid's first baron he. 



PADILLA. Canto I. 

There peace repos'd, and chieftains sought repose. 
When Valour's arm had hush'd their moslem-foes : 
There paid to Rodrigo their meet resort, 
Who, flower of knighthood, fled a dastard court, 
What time at Burgos he with dauntless port ; 3 
True to his master's shade — his country's right, 
Tender'd Alfonzo there the solemn plight. 

Why rings th' Alcazar with a chime so gay ? 
The Cid shall do his vassal grace to day. 
And first the mitred prelate leads the way ; 
In triple rows the Acolythes await, 
Deacons and priests attend in sacred state : 
The silver lamps and massive tapers' rays, 
On wreathed pillar, arch, and buttress blaze ; 
Glitters the altar down each aisle aloof, 
Through clouds of incense curling to the roof; 
Swells the sweet choir its orisons on high, 
And the deep organ's solemn melody. 

Heedless of pomp the father pours his pray'r, 
Love, joy, devotion, mingling in his air : 
See by yon rail the reverend figure stand, 
With eyes uprais'd, low voice, and trembling hand; 
O'er his tall forehead snowy ringlets play, 
Beauteous though bent, and splendid in decay. 



Canto I. PADILLA. 7 

For hopes long cross'd, and sighs resign' dly shed. 
Heaven surely lends a cherub to his bed — 
Child of his age, to be his darling stay, 
Smile on his knees, and in his bosom play. 

What waits the prelate in his purple chair ? 
The cornets flourish, clarions rend the air, 
Soars the loud chorus on a bolder wing, 
And arms and armour through the chancel ring : 
The sponsor's black-shield, gauntlets, helm, and spear, 4 
Scarce, in their vests of blue, three pages bear ; 
Next stalks that sponsor — Cid : — I know him by 5 
The sword Colada, and his bearing high : 
Unarm'd his head — his greaves and mail are dark ; 
So dark, the long black cross you faintly mark : 
In guise of steel succeeds a varied scene, 
Pages and squires, and lords and knights between. 



IV. 



How fair is childhood ! To his dimpling cheek, 
How young sensation daily adds a streak ! 
Thy pride, fair Teruel, thy flow'r of flow'rs, 
Alonzo's early bloom adorns thy bowers ! 



8 , PADILLA. Ganto I. 

See through the vista, toddling by his dame, 
He owns his father — almost lisps his name : 
The lady-mother, who, with many a pray'r, 
Had watch'd her darling at his morning air ; 
Through the arch'd casement, smiling on the scene, 
Descends through tower and portal to the green. 

Courteous arose the boy, though some withal 
Proclaim'd him spoil'd by ladies in the hall : 
For still the urchin there his sport pursu'd, 
Wilder than meet ; yet, when in wildest mood, 
Flash'd his blue-eyes, his infant bosom swell'd, 
A word, a smile, the transient passion quell'd : 
[Like shadows flitting o'er Valencia's grass, 
So swiftly past, they scarce are seen to pass. 

Now seven sweet springs are gone, and he must go, 6 
Go from the female hand that lov'd him so ! / 
How flash'd his glance, how throbb'd his breast that day, 
On truncheon, shield, and mimic arms' array ! 
Yet, ere his dame had press'd him to her heart, 
He turns the stair, as if in haste to part ; 
And, as his lady-mother's kisses swell, 
He seem' d to smile, though tears perchance befel. 

And what awaits him now ? far other scene 
Than gambols in the Jiall, or sports on green : 



Canto I. PADILLA. Q 

Long exercise, with strictest study join'd, 
To steel the frame and dignify the mind. 
To wave the falchion, bear away the ring, 
From barbed steed the lighter javelin fling; 
Couch the long lances, poize the ready shield, 
Rivet the helmet, close the armour steel'd : 
Such were the tasks, not undebatedly, 
Of more than twenty buds of high degree, 
In that old, splendid school of chivalry. 

Of various party they, as striplings use, r 
Each chose his company, or fain would choose. 
It pleas'd old Castro, that his darling still 
Went with de-Moniz, when they went at will. 
Wherefore ? — Perchance but for a name alone, 
The noble weakness of the noblest one ; 
For his was ev'n of fame that olden time, 
But of more high renown, through many a clime r^ 
Since him, the Lusian Regulus, whose grave 8 
Is east of Guimarafcs, by Sousa's wave. 

The words of wisdom thrice each day in hall, 9 
From sage, or heroes' lips, were heard to fall ; 
There e'en the Cid, the youths he lov'd so well, 
Haply of Valour's story deign'd to tell, 
What boldness, courtesy, and truth befit, 10 
Or Jongleurs sung, what Troubadours had writ / 



10 PADILLA. Canto L 

Of arms the theme began — of Amilcar, 
Of old Sertoripiis, and that Roman war; 
The martyr'd Merida — had follow'd well 11 
The Paladine, Pelayo, and Martel ; 
But still the minstrel deem'd his dearest lay 
Inspiring love, that melts the soul away. 12 



TROUBADOUR. 

The Spring's return, the pregnant seed, 
The trees with life and foliage moving, 

The vocal birds, the shepherd's reed, 
All Nature bids her bard be loving. 

Thy ladies, France ! in tent, or bow'rs, 
My heart, to leave them, felt severely ; 

It lov'd them well, delicious flowers ! 

But loves thee, Donna, far more dearly ! 

I've roam'd through beauty — trust me, fair, 
Few know her world and wiles so rightly ; 

Thine eyes are bright, but Mercy's air 

May make e'en thine to shew more brightly ! 



Canto I. PADILLA. H 

Spare we to tell — 'twere lengthen' d tale to tell, 
What pray'r and varied form our youths befelf 13 
When knighthood nam'd them of its honor'd train; 
How fair Valencia, flaunting on the plain 
The Cid's black cross, redeem'd her paynim stain : 
What solemn tones beguiled the ear of Night, 
The lone cathedral, and the lunar light : 
How good old Castro view'd his darling flow'r 
Pace the long aisle, and wake the witching hour. 
Perchance to Fancy's eye it might have been 
Like that fam'd vision of the Gallilean ; 
The father's reverend figure, tall and fair, 
Had seem'd a Moses, or Elijah there. 

V. 

Since man should reap — th' unblest sojourner man — 
Tears when he must, but rapture when he can, 
Linger a little while ; — a little while 
Our story smiles, as summer gardens smile : 
The Lybian merchant ihus % upon the verge 
Of whirling death- winds and the sandy surge, 
In isles of verdure, by the gelid springs, 
Rests on the turf, and for a season sings : 



12 PADILLA. Canto I, 

The exile thus, for whom th' Atlantic roars, 
Waits the last summons and the parting oars,— 
Oh ! seaborn Erin, how he loves thy shores ; 
Blessing those playful waves thy green breasts spurn — 
It is like death ! he never shall return ! 
Or thus, thou lady of my soul, e'en I 
Would fain retard the moments as they fly ; 
Taste, ere our parting, all that Fortune gives, 
And live for pleasure, while for us it lives. 
Scenes of delight, illusive visions rise ! 
Lend, playful brilliance, lend thy thousand dies ! 
Some sweet magician, or some angel-pow'r, 
(If such there be) prolong the fleeting hour ! 
Wander we, Lady, where the dewy balm, 
Lives unexhal'd amid the bowers of palm ; 
The forest-kings, whose clusters all assume 
Their coronets of gold and feathery plume : — c 
There stood, in view of city lawn and bay, 
Padilla's castle, Liria-of-the-laye, 



VI. 



And who that young Padilla ? 

Years of bliss 
Their infant years have rolFd, and still she is 1 * 



Canto 1. PADILLA, 13 

Alonzo's chosen one. Her primal prayer 
Had flow'd upon her princely father's bier: 
But yet her mother linger'd here below, 
Dear to her heart as its own ruddy flow ; 
Her brother, too — her Ferdinand — but he 
Was, far i'th'westward, train'd beyond the sea ; 
Train'd to the red-branch chivalry — nor less 15 
To arts and learning, in their last recess. 

Maid of the Ocean ! Fairy of the West ! 
Thou lovely Erin, in thy verdant vest ! 
Say shall I name thee, land, nor turn an eye 
Of filial homage to thy distant sky ? 
Isle of the poet, no ! thy name I say 
With heart too bursting, to forget thee aye- 
Isle of my parents ! — but I hush that string, 
It sounds of sadness, that I may not sing — 
Where was the bosom sear'd that beats not high, 
There was my home, and I was once a boy ? 
Sole hours of bliss ! if haply e'er they sped, 
Of harshness aught, the memory long is fled ; 
Their distant pictures soften on review 
In tints — like thine, Lorraine — of heavenly blue. 

There Ferdinand — there glide his hours along 
O'er Plato's god-like thought, or Homer's song : 



14 PADILLA. Canto I. 

The gothic cloisters chill in matin hour, 

But yield him truth and Fancy's fairer flow'r ; 

Illumin'd is his page, though darkness lie 

On buttress, capital, or chancel high — 

Accoutred gallantly on manag'd steed, 

For some fair lady's love breaking a reed, 

Or kneeling to salute her hand in hall, 

'Tis featly, knightly this — it is not all ; 

And you will love the friar and his cell, 

If science and the muses therein dwell : — 

Ah ! trust me, Ferdinand, his abbot's cowl 

Less blackly shews than shame and dullness scowl. 

Yes, letters lent to Erin early light, 
Follow'd — follow'd too soon by years of night ! 
In old Eamania minstrels roll'd along 16 
Their country's glories in their splendid song ; 
In war, or peace, to tones of woe, or glee, 
Swept his bold harp each bright-rob'd crotary : 
Monarchs, in meet applause, with prelates join'd, 
And red-branch knights on golden shields reclin'd. 

By sainted Arran, when the moonbeam fell, 17 
By lonely Fuaran-wave, or Croghan's dell, 
Like strains of mercy to each anthem-close 
The virgin hymn, or sweet hosanna rose ; 



Canto I. PADILLA. 15 

Till seem'd the music, as it died on air, 
Now angels whispering — now their silent prayer ! 
New notes of gladness woke the pearly morn, 
The blithe kulinkry, and the hunter's horn ; 18 
On groves of verdure smil'd the Shannon's sun, 
And sages taught where havoc's deed was done. 

Drop we the veil o'er bleeding Erin's plight ! 
With shrieks of horror through the troubled night 
Exulting murder hail'd the frequent shot, 
In hellish gambol round the blazing cot : — 
Drop we the veil ! Rest, fever'd spirit, rest, 19 
Heaven breathe some anodyne to sooth thy breast 1 
Thy wrongs are number'd — may thy peace succeed, 
And heal the wounds, so long have learn'd to bleed ; 
So future sons shall doubt the storied lore, 
Wond'rin^ in sadness how their fathers bore J 



VII. 

With Roman taste that castle well allied 
An antique vastness and baronial pride : 
Its gardens round, profusely gay and fair, 
So artful smile, no trace of art is there ; 



1(3 PADILLA. Canto h 

But painted flowerage and the milky blbw^ — Jv 
Of citrons temper, the pomegranate's glow : 
In mazy dalliance, shrubs and tendrils wove^ 
Pendant as ringlets, arch their lithe alcove : 
And brightest birds, while warbling waters play, 
Trim the small wing, or tune their am'rous lay i 
And, hark ! what silver sounds are upon air ? 
Hush, Lady, hush! — our group of friends appear* 



VIII. 

De-Moniz first, the leopard on his shield, 20 
And stars of golden in an azure field — 
Tall with his tinkling mail and courteously, 
Find all around him fair, as fair may be. 

His Spanish beaver nodding to and fro'j 
Its loops of silver, and its plume of snow ; 
His tawny sandals, capa lightly swung, 
And studded mercy* from his baldrick hung; 
While jovial hounds bay through the castle-court, 
Alonzo comes, with many a tale of sport : 

* The dagger miser icordia, mercy ;— because it shewed no mercy. 



Canto I. PADILLA. 17 

Fresh from a-field he comes, with hunter-lance, 

Where sparkling health is up, and pleasures dance : 

On his good arm a lady leans the while, 

With mother-love, and ever-during smile; 

Star of the placid Night ! so smiles thy beam, 

Sleeps on the wall, and slumbers on the stream. 

The deep mantilla, with a decent grace, 

Infolds in purfled silk the matron's face ; 

But white her neck-ruff frills — so dazzling white, 

Like icy crests, they glitter in the light. 

How sweet, she deems, to breathe the ev'ning air, 

Her future son — her own Pad ill a there ! 

Calls both her children, and delights to trace, 

Fond fancy all ! some semblance in their face. 



IX. 



Light, as the visions when the cloud revolves, 
A glance pourtrays them there, a breath dissolves ; 
Pure, as her lily-hand, Padilla goes, 
With wreath' d carnation, pink, or mossy rose : 
" Sweets to the sweet, mamma, to me most sweet, 
" And you, fair sirs — but you shall sing, I vow, 
" Thou knight o'th' azure stars, and hunter thou." 

c 



IB PADILLA. Canto I, 

" Lo ! on my knees, young priestess of the spring, 
" I crave the flowery gifts thine altars bring :" 
And, at the word rehears'd in courtly way, 
Rings forth all blithly Moniz' roundelay. 

SONG. 

Lady ! mine eyes had deem'd thee fair, 
Were not thy form less brightly killing 

Than visions dress'd, as saints, in air, 

By fancy's touch, so warm and thrilling. 

Last night one seem'd upon the car, 

On Cynthia's paly car to ride ; 
Who, bending wav'd her arm afar, 

To place my pillow by her side. 

Our couches rock'd on embryo storms, 
Soft as some seraph's milky bed ; 

While clouds enwrapt our shadowy forms, 
In bosoming down and fringes spread : 

How sweet, methought, our lamp that bade 
Each trembling star with lustre glow ; 

How sweet to leave this world of shade, 
In pitying surely those below. 



Canto I. PADILLA. 19 

But, oh ! how sweet, when some pale lover, 
Devoutly woo'd our orb of night ; 

Like old Elijah round to hover, 

And cast the gazer robes of light ! 

Spirit, farewel ! since morning beams 
Have burst intrusive on our joy, 

And think how oft in ev'ning dreams, 
Spirit, you've sworn to love your boy. 

Farewel ! 'till Cynthia's nightly car 
Again convey me to your sphere, 

Where unseduc'd I turn afar 

From forms that pass for beauty here. 

Alonzo next :— in wreathed cadence wove, 
Mingle his notes of valour and of love ; 
And, haply floating down the distant dale, 
Add new delight to love's delicious tale. 
The mountain-maid, a rose of bourgeon'd sweets, 
There meets her young lord, blushing as she meets ; 
Hears, in sobbing, his vows of passion hears, 
And sinks, with music melting on her ears/ 

c 2 



20 PADILLA. Canto f. 

Far to the westward, just ere Cynthia's beam. 
O'er the blue heath ere silver lightnings stream ; 
Ere through the crisped Arbutes pale stars play,— 
So dies in summer-rest the sun away ; 
Sung to repose, like cradled babes to sleep, 
While wHng'd musicians tuneful vigils keep. 



SONG. 

" Douro ! when the sabres dancing, 

" Gleam'd like cressets o'er thy flood; 

" Douro ! when the coursers prancing, 
M Bore the Koran on through blood : 

a A knight his palace wildly gaining, 
" Hence my dove, my dove" he cried ; 
tc Hence, I hear the war-yell straining ! 
" The dove was flown — the palace void. 

H Now that Christian knight is bearing 
" For the shield a palmer-shell ; 

" Syria's lions soon uprearing, 

" Soon may give his midnight knell/'— 



Canto I. PADILLA. 21 

Alhambra's harem flourish'd quaintly, 

Jasmin' d arch and oriels fair 
Drank the notes. — Hark ! far and faintly 

Female answers swell on air ! 

" Guzman ! Guzman ! sooth thine anguish ; 

" Soldier, hold a soldier's fame ; 
" Knight ! thy dove, though doom'd to languish, 

" Fondly true is still the same. 

" None shall tell her tale of ruin ; 

" Peril ne'er her soul shall strike ; 
"Whom all have sued is vainly suing; 

" Pain and pleasure spurn'd alike. 

u Guzman, may our voices reach thee ; 

" Here the cage thou seekedst, see ; 
" Here thy dove, we soothly teach thee, 

u Lives no more, or lives for thee." 

Not unheard the notes were streaming, 
Past the Caliph on his throne ; 
On his throne of crystal, beaming 
Bright with many a living stone. 



22 PADILLA; Canto I. 

Bless thee, god-like Abderame ! 

Prince, you gave the lovers life ; 
Who their meeting may pourtray me ? 

" Husband, husband !"— " Oh ! my wife !" 

Spirit of mercy ! who from yonder sphere 
Sometimes, mid erring mortals, wand'rest here, 
Fair lovely missioner ! to bid us see, 
What angels are, and man perchance may be ! 
Thou deign'st, well deem we, woman's form to wear, 
Most like thine own, and dearest to thy care. 

'Tis not the timid blue, 'tis not the blue 
Of eyes that swim, like violets wet with dew ; 
Nor yet the sigh, nor bosom, o'er whose snow, 
Like waves of crimson flame, the blushes go : — 
Though beauteous these, their less celestial train, 
Albeit unstain'd, seem conscious of a stain : 
But, when young beauty, like the sportive spring, 
Sheds as she flies the pleasures from her wing ; 
With glance of rapture, with a heart of glee, 
Fresh as the dawning, as the breezes free ; 
While in her carol all her soul o'erflows, 
And Health's fine pencil tints her limbs with rose : 



Canto I. PADILLA. 23 

Creature so bright was ne'er of mortal birth, 
A guest — a fleeting denizen on earth. 
" Blest be thou holy one," we well may cry, 
Thou Nature's pattern — daughter of the sky ! 
From seats of moss, beneath the tulip tree, 
Unwonted music wanders on the lea, 
And ever as Padilla essays her air, 
Some wanton ringlet straggles from her hair. 
To the wild measures of the western star 
When tun'd, at length awakes her sweet guitar, 
With looks of doating, on her mother's eye 
She smiles a space, then flings her tresses by ; — 
Rest not her thoughts on thee, her brother, rest ? 
Speak through her glances? — flutter in her breast ? 
For thee this foreign lay was learn'd, for thee 21 
Her fondest hope, far, far beyond the sea : — 



SONG. 

Weave, weave ye maids of Innisfail, 82 

Your flowery wreaths and crowns of green ; 

Row, row ye youths of Innisfail, 
Singing down Nea's silver scene. 



24 PADILLA. Canto I, 

Sing, sing ye maids of Innisfail, 

The fiery Dane is fled afar, 
And fairies, with the ruby mail, 

In moonlight mount their em'rald car. 

The black, black Earl, at rest once more, 
Pickets his greys in Haclem-hill, 

And there shall lie, long ages o'er, 
With all his troops enchanted still : 

Not but the chains and champing steed 
Shall nightly ring down Smarmor's dell, 

And scarlet grooms their coursers lead 
To water, far in Liny- well. 

Each seventh year on Curragh-more 

Shall Kildare peasants shun the course ; 

For mounted squadrons there shall pour 
With grass-green flag and bugles hoarse. 

'Tis thus the black, black Earl shall wait 
His country's doom, in years of trance 

Again, when foe-men shout elate, 

To spring to life, and poize her lance : — 



Canto I. PADILLA. 25 

Then weave, ye maids of Innisfail ! 

Your flowery wreaths and crowns of green; 
Row, row ye youths of Innisfail, 

Singing down Nea's silver scene ! 



X. 



Thus pleasure sped, and they believ'd its flowers; 
Laugh'd the bright hour, and hop'd still brighter hours 
So Java's victim, tainted by the breeze, 
Riots in death, unconscious of disease. 



XL 



'Twas autumn, — evening : — lo ! the castle-bell 
Tolls from its eastern tower the twilight-knell ; 
The moon in silence, through the pictur'd pane, 
Bathes in the hall the slabs Mosaic stain ; 
While liveried guards, along th' embattled ridge, 
Close the great gateway — raise the trembling bridge. 

Within that eastern tower a sister's care 
Had dress'd her Ferdinand a chamber fair! 



26 PAD1LLA. Canto I. 

'Twas strange amid such gothic pile to see — 
Majestic, vast, too vast for symmetry — 
In Liria-of the-laye, 'twas strange to find 
A temple Venus' self had not declin'd; 
Venus, when moving, by the starry light, 
With all her graces, on the Paphian height. 

For the long aisle and arches pointed high 
Springs the fair dome, seeming a cloudless sky ; 
For oaken chair and saint's unwieldly pouch, 
The bronz'd Apollo, and the slender couch ; — 
Curves the light Grecian frieze with cornice crown'd, 
And pensile lamps effuse their silver round. 

Thence, through the forest one was seen to speed 
And down the dim slope urge his jaded steed ; 
Swings from his daggled mail the courier horn 
And thrice its flourish on the wind is borne. 

Throughout the castle straight is tumult all, — 
The bolts creak back harshly, the bridges fall ; 
" Heaven bless thee always, brother ! 'tis from thee !" 
Padilla cries, and bending on her knee, 
With clasped hands and rapture-swimming eye, 
Seems like a seraph lighted from the sky. 

The youthful lord of Deva's dark defile 
Had sped the letters from Ierne's isle : 



Canto I. PADILLA. 27 

" A fleeting month, and Ferdinand shall prove 
" His mother's blessing, and his sister's love." 

And now that mother sheds, with fervent air, 
The tears of gladness and devotion's prayer : 
" And thou ! who join'd, ere rapt to choirs above, 
" An angel's virtue with a husband's love ; 
" Dear guardian spirit ! — for you surely move 
" Around us ever, though with tread so still — ■ 
" Approve our daughter's choice ; it was your will ! 
66 Then take, Alonzo — take her son, and know 
" The gift more bright than monarchs may bestow, 
" Child of my pride ! — the treasure of my heart ! 
" But thou deserv'st her : more may words impart ?" 

" But thou my hope ! since hope was in the spring, 
a Light of my soul ! — my bosom's vital string ! 
" Wilt thou be mine ? — Wilt thou indeed be mine ?"— 
" Yes ! from this hour, Alonzo, I am thine." 

Ah, love ! Oh, luckless love ! whate'er my will, 
With all my wrongs I must adore thee still ; 
Thy blinded worshipper would gladly gain 
Thy fleeting rapture with whole years of pain ! 



28 PADILLA. Canto I. 

XII. 

Moniz, how fares he ? — sorely doth he feel, 
Hung, like the savage, writhing on the wheel. 
With well-dissembled joy perchance he smiles, 
Perchance some scalding drop his cheek defiles : 
Pausing on torturing guilt his thoughts incline, 
Then hurl with conscience down the dark design : 
So paus'd the coward ere he fled from time, 
Hung o'er the gulf, and shudder'd at the crime, 
Spent his last glances with a curse on day, 
His eye-balls desperate grip'd and plung'd away, — 
From rock, with headlong speed, to rock he fell, 
Plash'd in the distant wave — then sunk to hell. 

Woe, Moniz, woe ! fly, luckless miscreant, fly, 
Far as the flaming zone, the polar sky ; 
There — at least guiltlessly — thy heart-strings eat ! 
If he receiv'd such warning, it was late. 

He, like a sister from her infancy, 
Had doted on the maid of laughing eye ; 
But now he burneth to an impious end : 
'Twas treason to his friend;— he lov'd that friend. 

Moniz was handsome ; though his features bear 
Nought that commands a high respect, or fear. 



Canto I. PADILLA. 29 

His was that comely look, that placid air, 
You dread no guile, nor hope much genius there. 
Dark were his eye-brows, but their depth was slight ; 
His eyes were dark, but never flashing bright ; 
Nor, like Alonzo's, might his forehead tell 
Of secret power, — of mind unreadable : — 
Good, gentle, kind, for vice too weak at worst, 
What passions bubble there will quickly burst. 

But he hath summon'd, with a fierce control, 
An effort from his soul ; — it tore his soul : 
Full gloomy prospect is beneath his eye, 
Yet will he dare it — not remorselessly. 
Wretch, thou art suffering ? — hope it not the worst : 
The deadliest pang of guilt is not the first. 

" He comes! he comes!" — he cried, from time to 
time, 
And, quite resolv'd, was still deferring crime ; 
" But he has landed, — now my soul, or never; 
K Or, wilt thou lose her and thy hopes for ever ? 

" No by " and fearful was the oath he swore; 

He sigh'd — that breast shall sigh for evermore. 

'Tis night, 'tis midnight past : his chamber-door 
Opens in silence. Needs not ask, I ween, 
Who the dark lantern holds — himself unseen : 



30 PADILLA. Canto I. 

But the light, flashing down that pass of stone, 
Shews one, the foremost, ill to look upon. 
Although in basest rags and want he be, 
You only shudder at the poverty 
The work of nature — not of misery — 
Of the low mind, instinctive of its due. 
That takes your charity in cursing you. 

Full on his features now the lantern threw 
His rugged features ; — see yon stubborn stone, 
Whose face the mason's sledge would break upon : 
'Tis tractable that stubborn face to his : 
Of soul such utter dearth ! were't not for this, 
Here were the assassin of the painter's hand; 
But genius, spite itself, is in all it plann'd ! 
Same breadth of yellow cheeks, with many a trace 
Deep plough'd — as if in mock'ry of a face ; 
Each has the sunk eye glaring frightfully, 
But more is wildness in the painted eye ; 
Same angles of the mouth ; — red hairs too stand 
Thin on each forehead ; each has one clench'd hand : 
One too that grasps a naked knife : — but there 
The canvas speaks — and all is iron here. 

With such companion ! at such hour of night J 
What means their meeting? nought, I fear, of right. 



Canto I. PADILLA. 31 

As down they go, the ruffian backward threw 

A look ; — the lantern pauses, wavers too. 

Oh ! then his muscles, though scarce mov'd the while, 

Took — what in hell perchance were nam'd a smile : 

And slow contracting in those lips of stone, 

That seem as of no human skeleton, 

Rings all the castle with his whistle shrill — 

" Hush ! friend I do beseech of thee be still." 

But when they came to where the postern lay, 
Was ushering from that narrow vaulted way, 
He could not — or he would not turn the key ; 
Then Moniz leaves his lantern on the clay — 
He tries — though rusted, it opes readily : 
But, lo ! that ruffian bends in passing by. 
Snatches the light, and stares him as he stood ; — 
Hah ! pale and trembling ! — Have they treated blood ? 



XIII. 

Forthwith the dawn, when down the mountain side 
In pale attire she moves — who would not ride, 
With hooded falcon on their gloves of buff, 
Hounds silver-leash'd, and wolf-dog in his iron ruff? 



32 PADILLA. Canto L 

Castro exulted — for his bosom ne'er 
Rose more dilated in the morning air : 
When Moniz mark'd his rapture-beaming eye, 
More strengthen'd minds have felt less cruelly : — 
It smote that moment on his soul, like hell, 
To wrong the man, was loving him so well. 
Ah ! might he waver ! — soon that doubt is o'er! 
He fain would smile, but he shall smile no more. 

" Trust, my Alonzo, trust this anxious heart 
" In all thy fortune bears a brother's part ; 
" On thee, my friend, Heav'n's choicest blessings flow, 
" And I am — I am blest, when thou art so !" 
" Yes, Moniz, yes — thou ever kind and true — 
" O God ! Yes I am bless'd ! how dearly too ! 
" Friends, parents, country, all with me rejoice — • 
" E'en he, my monarch, with parental voice 
" Smiles on my love, and consecrates my choice : 
" Fly, fly, ye weeks, and soon my beauteous bride, 
" Soon shall a brother lead thee to my side." 

XIV. 

Swift flew the weeks — the glittering weeks away, 
And Hope, sweet star, illum'd each closing day : 



Canto I. PADILLA. 33 

The livelong morning would Padilla stand, 
With silken signal, by the breezes fann'd ; 
And oft the lovers, at the midnight hour, 
Brighten the cresset in the warder's tower. 
Strange ! and more strange ! — moons wane as moons 

have wan'd, — 
No Ferdinand — and yet no Ferdinand. 



END OF CANTO I. 



Canto II. PADILLA. 35 



CANTO II. 



I. 



JVocK-of-the-Cid !" (for still thou bear'st a name 23 
Shall live — so doubly is it seal'd to fame ! — 
Outlive this Granite-mass, Time loves to spare) 
" Rock-of-the-Cid I" more wildly went on air, 
The shriek, arous'd thy lion from his lair ; 
Than lately ? — France ! Oh, France ! 'tis sadly said, 
Ruin, like thine, nor Goth, nor Moslem shed. 

The war-shriek it hath ceas'd : but shall we cease 
Blessing thee, Wellington, through years of peace? 
A lady from the west, of clear blue eye, 
Came with her offspring's shield of blazonry, 
Pleading, at England's throne, for honors due : — 
Nor listless she, nor slow ; but smiling, drew 
Her roll with snowy hand, and shew'd the name 
First in that many-languag'd roll of fame. 
That roll was written by the stainless tree, 
Standing at Freedom's shrine eternally : 

d 2 



36 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Hope of the long-benighted foreigner ! 

For on its top a flame was burning clear ; 

And, though it blew, and cruel rains were sweeping, 

That small flame evermore was clearly creeping : — 

Small — but it hath at length, in God's own hour, 

Burst on the nation's kneeling to adore. 

Thou, pardon this intrusion, though unmeet ! 

Fain would I wreath a laurel for thy feet, 

Or spotless valour in his early grave ! 

Ill suits my voice with praises of the brave; 
Spain's war shall others sing : O, Wellington ! 
Thy wars, this later time — nor these alone ; 
But Xeres — and of yore what turbann'd hosts 
Vanish'd at Diva's stream, like wintry ghosts : 
A short, faint cry of struggling in a flood — 
Again the crescent wan'd — the cross arose in blood ! 



II. 



But now were gaily heard — they shall not long- 
The southern peasant's sweet guitar and song : 
Now black-ey'd virgins, by their fav'rites' side, 
Dwelt on th' impassion'd vow they seem to chide. 



Canto II. PADILLA. 37 

With playful wiles, that beauty's bloom outlive, 
Or lend a grace e'en beauty fails to give. 

'Tis peace : — Valencia standeth royally, 
Crown'd with her burnish'd crosses in the sky ; 
O'er groves of turrets, gothic and Moresque ; 
O'er clustering cones and spires of Arabesque t 
They, catching the last sun-beams as they pass,- 
Blaze brightly forth, like diamonds in the gas. 

Fair Teruel ! adown thy woodland breast 
Groves of green olive, pale Sobreira*s rest — 
O painting ! to pourtray her southern pass, 
With visions gleaming like a magic glass ! 
In long perspective, to th' horizon all, 
Are Moslem minaret, and moorish hall ; 
La-Yesa, Guadalaviar's gentle wave, 
The curling smoke-wreaths, turrets glittering brave ; 
Towns, and the gothic fortresses between, 
Forest afar, and mist to blend the scene. 

Now almond shades on Guadalaviar's vale 
List the soft lute, or Love's more soft'ning tale ; 
The orange-fruits^and blooms the lemon-blow, 
And flowering aloes scent the stream below ; 
Through purple foliage plays the honied bee, 
And white sails sparkle on the distant sea. 



38 PADILLA. Canto II. 



III. 



Pass we to busier scenes of arms and sport, 25 
The tourney's splendour — Oviedo's court. 
Thus through all Europe, publish'd far and near, 
That tourney was. — Shall Ferdinand appear ? 

PROCLAMATION. 

Lords and ladies, fair and free, 26 
For love, for arras, and courtesy ! 
Looks demure, and wily glances, 
Where hope, desire, and pleasure dances I 
Noble youths, so bold and gay ! 
Remembrance sweet and frolic play ! 
Richly rob'd and debonnaire — 
Listen lords and ladies fair : — 
On the day, the day of May, 
The beauteous, bright, and festive day, 
To Oviedo's court repair ; 
Your king proclaims a tourney there : 
The lists invite— your rights uphold— 
Love and honor wait the bold. 



Canto IT. PADILLA. 39 

For there the flowers of Spain shall be, 
Knights and dames of high degree : — 
Twenty knights shall there begin. 
And twenty ladies lead them in. 
Ail arm'd alike ; in order due 
Each shall range her warrior true : 
Next, twenty squires shall grace the ring, 
And every squire his maid shall bring 
In meet attire : — and heralds there 
With plaudits loud shall rend the air. 
Bear, ye brave, your saddles hold, 
Love and honour wait the bold. 



Then shall be seen who wield the lance, 
Then shall be seen the lords advance, 
Of noble port and courteous air. 
Winning the hearts of ladies fair : 
Who bear them well and hardily, 
To them shall praise and glory be ; 
True love a tender notice shew, 
Teach their souls a softer glow ; 
And honour ptay the guerdon meet, 
For every best and bravest feat : — 



40 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Fair tidings all, and truly told ! 
Love and honour wait the bold ! 



Heavens, what a sight ! How feebly words pourtray 
The dazzling glories that outshine the day! 
How stud the balconies, above, below, 
The gems of beauty, knighthood's mailed show ; 
Marshals, and many a hoary Seneschall, 
Each with his wand of gold and crimson shawl, 
Castille's wrought tabards, Leon's sergeantry, 
Bearing her sanguine lions proudly high ; 
Dukes, barons, pursuivants in ermine guise, 
Squires, kings-at-arms, and judges of the prize! 

High o'er them all are rear'd, in order meet, 
Alfonzo's throne, and Roderick's iv'ry seat; — 
That seat of iv'ry, at Valencia won, 
Was wrought in Bagdad for the Caliph's son ; 
That throne of brilliants had a blood-stone dome, 
Blood-stone from Mecca and the Prophet's tomb : — 
All, all is gorgeous, all — the plumes of white, 
Pavillions, purple flags, and mirrors teeming bright. 

Hark to the signal-trump ! The knights advance 
With gilded stirrups and their pennon'd lance ! 



Canto II. PADILLA. 41 

Their blazon'd shields, and favours in their casque, 
Avouch, for ladies' love, a noble task : 
Their barbed coursers, pawing in their might, 
Neigh through the ring, and shiver with delight ; 
Couch'd are their lances — heralds ply their care — 
The minstrels' solemn chorus swells on air ! 



ONSET. 

Servants of love ! look round awhile, 
What angel-forms ! and how they smile ! 
Bear ye brave, your saddles hold, 
Love and honour wait the bold ! 

A pause succeeds ! — a moment's pause alone : 
So Caesar look'd upon his Rubicon, 
Then loos'd his eagles, and they took their flight ! 
The clarions flourish — " God defend the right." 



IV. 



The first unhors'd was by a Biscayer, 
Proud with his Arab dark and scimitar ; — 
His shield, that hung in church two nights so clear, 27 



42 PADILLA. Canto II. 

On the fourth morning bore a cross of blue ; 
But since had been adjudg'd, " stainless and true." 
Murcians were five — and one from Portugal 
Came gaily on a sorrel, light and small ; 
His plume was ruby — Douro's grapes were seen 
Upon his housings and his shield of green; 
But in the second joust he found a knee, 
Losing his mistress with his vanity. 

Long did the conflict last, and all around 
Steeds, gauntlets, flowers of knighthood strew the 

ground ! 
Oh ! many a prayer was there and tear-drop bright 
Of many a lady, for her servant's plight; 
And many a one, her hood, rings, ribbrfns throwing, 
Bares her white bosom, lets her locks be flowing. 
" Here" — cries a grey knight, with a high falcade, — 
" Here for thee, princess" — and she sees him laid. 
Who shines in golden ? — Not his shield may tell, 
Till tears its gimp of lily as he fell : 28 
'Tis — by the virgin, it is he ! — 'tis who ? 
Good night to Moniz' stars and azure-blue. 
The gothic dragon green, the vermil crown 29 
Of France, and Matto's silver-pine are down, 
With Ansur of the lineage high, who bore 30 



Canto II. PADILLA. 43 

The figs, that never knew defeat before t 

But three, but two remain — they charge once more, 

" What ho !" and th£ knight-of-honour shakes his 

glove, 31 
cc Ho ! for the ladies' love, the ladies' love." 
Check'd are the tilters ; each in full career 
Wheels with a demivolte and vailing spear ; — 
A moment they may breathe, a moment look, 
Then close the tourney with the ladies' stroke. 

One was a knight — a knight from Aquitaine ; 
Xll brook'd he waiting while his vassals train 
For Palestine, — so hither comes to gain 
Some meed of arms, for sake of his lady — 
His lady's sake, the Queen of Hungary. 
White was his armour, all ; his courser " Wold" 
Drank when a white-foal of the Danube cold ; 
Upon his bracelet is a milk-white glove ; 
And, bending t'wards it with a smile of love, — 
" Ha ! ha ! with our lord of St. Dennis' will, 
u This poor lance shall approve thee peerless still, 
" Saint of my orisons ! I swore so by, 
w Swore by the pheasant and our good lady ; 32 
" Look to it, gallants, for your chivalry." 



44 PADILLA. Canto II. 

The other is in black — save spurs of gold 
And pea-green favour in his helmet bold ; 
Though small, tough manhood's form, I ween, is here, 
And long have Moslem widows wept that spear : 
But few do know him, neither do he heed 33 
His aventayle ; but only strokes his steed. 

" A joust," again the bugles sound a charge, 
" A joust, the ladies' joust, at large, at large." 
The lists they have been clear'd, and each good knght 
Has fetch'd a compass on his courser light ; 
They've made their rests — saluted royally ; 
They've run — they've met — their long spears fly; fly, 
flittering fly. 
Now, for your hopes of knighthood ! lances, lances — 
Blow, bugles, blow ! — each ready squire advances : 
Again the twain are arm'd, again they ride — 
Turn, Queen of Hungary \ Oh ! turn aside ! 
That thrust thy servant has receiv'd, that thrust, — 
It goes, — bracelet and glove are in the dust. 
Ho ! largess, largess ! — from the saddle-bow 34 
Dips in a thrice that gentle knight below — 
Regains the glove, rises — Ah ! may not rise, 
The noble Wold is wounded, plunging, dies. 



Canto II. PADILLA. 45 

Bursts from the dazzling crowd their eager cry ; 
Wave the bright streamers, caps and plumage fly, 
The peals of triumph rise, the choral song, 
And lords and ladies to the victor throng. 
And who is he, the victor of the field — 
The Cid's black cross emblazon'd on his shield I 
Who, but the beardless warrior of an hour, 
Hope of the Castro, knighthood's youngest flow'r? 



V. 



Ah ! who can paint — the parent's self beside — 
A mother's triumph, or a father's pride ? 
Castro's — the good one's tears of rapture roll 
To bless the child and lady of his soul ; 
Her husband's arm that lady-mother press'd 
Seeking, with pleasure's faintest smile, his breast. 
When first young Edward taught the world to name 
Cressy's black-prince, and Britain's day of fame, 
Not on his lilli'd casque the plumes outshone 
His modest bearing, and his gentle tone : 35 
So meek, so winning, with his soils bespread, 
High up the royal star Alonzo's led ; 



45 PADILLA. Canto II. 

But, as he'd kneel, that monarch on his throne 
Rais'd him with courtesy, was all his own : — 
" To-day, young man ? St. Isidro forfend ! 
a Sit by our side ? our vassal and our friend." 



VI. 



And now the Cid — his hundred knights between — 
Arose in greeting : wonder hush'd the scene. 
Stately his form ; nor less allur'd the sight, 
His bless'd beard streaming o'er his shoulder right ; 
The hand that dares, what none besides shall dare, 36 
Had thinn'd that woven beard, and blanch'd its hair : 
So when a ship from distant conquest won, 
Bears thee, old England ! home some fav'rite son j 
Nelson or Howe — what glitter, though no more 
Her flags, her sails, her pennants, pictur'd prore ; 
And masts, that play'd with heaven — she yet shall keep 
Her stately course, th* pomp and ruler of the deep. 

A solemn gladness glistens in his eye : 
Nor, as he holds his matchless sword on high, 
Views he that two-edg'd blade, without a sigh — 
For there the Castillan, " full conyngelie," 



Canto II. PADILLA. 47 

Had wrought in gold his country's tale of pride : 37 

In might and splendour, down the southern tide, 
First were Phoenician navies seen to ride : — 
Next, in the distance, fickle commerce flies, 
Down furls her banner, flames salute the skies : 
Forth from that pyre the Roman eagle springs, 
Exults a season, wantons on his wings; 
Till glancing forth, and eager for the day, 
He shoots — and upward takes his dazzling way : 
Still holds his pinion, with no mortal force ; 
But clouds arrest him in his sun-ward course, 
Abrupt, rolling, while dimly-gleaming pear, 
The Vandal anlance and the Runic spear . — 
On the reverse, where gothic altars shine, 
Kings in their pride, and prouder priests recline ; 
For all confus'dly through the dusk were thrown, 
Monarchs and monks, the crosier and the crown : — 
Hah ! what awaits ? — The day, the bleeding day, 
The woes of Xeres, and the turban-sway ! 
Wave ! wave, Pelayo, wave thy flag of dread ! 
Him Freedom snatching from her sainted dead 
Bore through the tempest with unearthly tread, 
O'er peaked cliffs, by many a torrent lone, 
And crown'd the chieftain on her mountain-throne:— 



48 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Th'eternal mountains answer to His sign, 
Marching to war with all their plumes of pine : 
Dark, dark Auseva, what a sight was thine I 
Asturias' rose — when rose th* unconquer'd one, 
What might the crescent hope ? — Its beam was done. 
" Farewell, Colada !" — such the chieftain's word — 
< On Bavieca, and with thee, good sword, 
c In tilt and battle, by the field and flood, 
6 Oft have we stood, — nor there unfoughten stood ! 
' Now youth becomes thee best, — though youth sup- 



< Not always valour, and there were of those 38 

c Who starv'd thee, slaves, by sordid fear betrayed !- 

1 Scarce ^ye campaigns thy noble thirst allay'd ! 

' But he will honour thee : — my sword adieu ; 

6 Be still, Colada — still the mighty and the true ! — 

4 Well hath it pleas'd me, boy, thy brave display 

c Of my black cross, for thy device to-day ; — 

6 Then take Colada — wear it worthily, 

6 And that black guise one year, for love of me." 

Yes ! there be feelings words can ne'er impart, 
Too fine to draw, and flashing from the heart. 
Alonzo bow'd — the blade, with conscious pride, 
Castille's fair princess buckled to his side. 



Canto II. PADILLA. 49 

VII. 

There is a vision like my angel-sprite, 
And kinder, truly, for it greets ray sight — 
Lady — 'tis thine upon a noted night ! 
Maidens awhile have pin'd, — bards dream'd awhile, 
But few have lov'd : — love is not volatile. 
Not thee — this vision of what once was thee 
Give but a pencil for its smile on me, 
And I will dwell — upon the picture dwell, 
Play with the page, and brighten what befel ; 
In dazzling colours clothe Padilla's form. 
Fairer than fancy — more than nature warm. 

Yet was she fair : — the darkness of her eye 
Glitter'd around — and, glittering, all was joy. 
The glassy fancy-work, the filmy dew 
You blow to nothing— she is frailer too ; 
Yet could you haply mark, or ween to mark, 
In e'en that frailness some soft passion's spark. 
Her satin sandal of the faintest blue 
A diamond o'er her ivory ankle drew ; 
The blue simar, wrapping her slender waist, 
Powder'd with pearl and gems, a cincture lac'd : 



50 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Small was her rounded head — and, richly set, 
A crosslet pinn'd her clustering locks of jet. 

To her, Alonzo, not unfollow'd by 
The choral maids and minstrel's symphony, 
Tenders to her upon his bended knee 
The gold-fring'd scarf of green embroidery, 
Plac'd in his helmet black, when to the ring 
She gaily led his steed with silken string. 
" A largess ! largess !" — more the pennons wave — 
" Glory t'th' son o'th' brave— t'th' son o'th' brave !"* 
She was his queen — for her he craves the meed, 40 
Touching her rosy lip — so chivalry decreed. 

Lover like me, if any love like me — 
Creature of passion ! nerve of ecstacy ! 
? Twas the first kiss, most pure — perhaps most bright, 
That checks our fondness, yet insures it quite : 
He thrills, well might it be — through every pore 
Fainting with bliss — and almost dreaded more. 



VIII. 

And where is Ferdinand ? — Full eagerly 
Was every stranger view'd — that— was not he 



Canto II. PADILLA. 51 

And high along Salvador's cloisters hung 
Shields, fifty shields, that his was not among. 
Still is the mother's hope, the sister's gay — 
Lovely in summer is the wat'ry way ; 
Green Erin's isle is far beyond the sea, 
And south-winds lately blew, though calmly — con- 
stantly. 

Yet once the tourney-eve did Castro's eye 
Gaze on an unknown blazon doubtingly : 
Unknown, for of its yellow gimple on, — 
'Twas but a newly-dubb'd from Arragon ! 
So now he pales : — if Moniz too 'gin pale, 
'Tis, that his brother-in-arms has cause to wail. 

At length fantastic fame, with muffled crown 
Steals, like a spial, whisp'ring through the town ; 
Whisp'ring of battle, conquest, and defeats — 
Her dubious tale perplexes all she meets : 
As when the beacon, like a distant star, 
Glimmers through fog — the sailor from afar 
Toss'd to the north, where hags with wizard-lore 
Expect the shipwreck on Ronalsa's shore, 
Braves the chill sleet ; and, straining on the view, 
Descries the light, yet almost doubts it too ; 

e 2 



52 PADILLA. Canto II. 

The waters rave, the famish'd eagle cries, 
Flaps his grey wing, and hovers for his prize. 



IX. 



When silence muses on her purpled hill, 
Through mist and twilight by the mossy rill ; 
When finch and linnet sing their vesper-tale, 
And all the soul of flow'rs perfumes the gale, 
Who but has ponder'd on the streaked sky, 
Pourtraying there some object of her sigh ? — 
Dress'd the fond sketch in hues that baffle art — 
Friend of her being ? — brother of her heart ? 

Fever'd and faint he haply wanders on 
Through Indian climes, and conquers with the sun ; 
Who, king of nations, from his blazing car, 
Waves his broad ensign in the van of war. 

Haply her hero — cautious, silent, all — 
Paces the night-watch on Gfariffa's wall; 
How calmly sleeps below the tented-ground ! — 
See the blue-flash ! Resistless thunders sound 
Burst on the ranges — shatter all around — 
Through volum'd smoke the grenadiers defile, 
Close their bright ranks, and struggle up the pile : 



Canto II. PADILLA. 53 

Flanking the breach, in serried line are set 
Above, beneath, the groves of bayonet : 
Near — and more near — may still no volley fly, 
Mute valour waiting, dark death pausing by ! 
So — ready — fire ! whole columns roll away, 
Swept, like the hurricane that clears the day — 
'Tis o'er, 'tis o'er — one swoop, and all is o'er — 
Shout, England, shout, victorious evermore. 

Perchance, too rudely ! in his budding fame 
Cold ague shakes, or fever thins his frame, 
Down surly Tagus he endures with pain, 
The tentless shallop, and the midnight rain 
Four cheerless days — 'till sicken at his heart 
Life's ebbing pulses, trembling to depart ! 
Poor patient sufferer — thy fears dispel ; 
Reach but thy home, and all will yet be well ; 
Its breezes fan thee, and a mother's eye 
Chace the pale tyrant — hov'ring now so nigh. 

Who but in fondness for their wand'rers burn, 
Blessing the news that promise their return ? 
Unlike Padilla, may they never mourn ! 
With hopes like her's — for mercy say not lost ! 

Alas ! a scout arrives — the Christian host 
Late in the north had won a bloody boast ! 



54 PAD1LLA. Canto II. 

Writhing with no unreal pangs, I trow — 
" This world," cries Moniz, is a world of woe : 
" Some drops of bliss may mock the parched lip — 
" Infernal drops ! they vanish, Castro, ere we sip." 



X. 



And with him was the scout, who, weak and old, 
Is shiv'ring in his tatter' d mantle-fold. — 
It is the same — but then they suited well 
That hour — that lantern — and that look of hell : — 
What means he here ? And now his red-eyes glow 
Methinks more keenly — but his speech is slow, 
Though not untutor'd in its tale of woe ; 
For all, broke with his own uncouthness so. 
" Hah ! waits the caitiff 'till my heart-strings go ? 
" What, what of Ferdinand ? — out, varlet, out !" 

" Ay, by St. Marco ! — and full soon I doubt. — 
u I serv'd your Ferdinand from infancy, 
" Faithful and base, as best a slave may be ; 
" Others perchance had plain' d— not so with me — 
" When gracious masters laud their vassal's wife, 
" True liege-men love the honour as their life. 41 



Canto II. PADILLA. 55 

" Good — it is good — frown, faith, an it do suit — 
" Another frown, by Marco, leaves me mute : 
" Off stormy Ortegal, some two months gone, 
" The port (in brief) our vessel scantly won ; 
" 'Twas all by Burgos we descried afar 
" The Christian war-flag — and wejoin'd the war. 
a By Mark ! 'twas gallant from the wings to see 
" Part like a storm the steel-clad chivalry ! 
" Our vested bishop, with his ringlets hoar, 
" The cross on high in front of battle boar ; 
" But vainly bore — while 'thwart the Moslem-van 42 
" A chain, with massive fangs of iron, ran; — 
" Thrice on that chain our darkest war we spent, 
" Returning thrice, like clouds by thunder rent; 
" Again — it fell — ay, but my master fell : 
" Galin, he cried, my mother, sister, tell — 
" But gently tell it, — or their hearts will break;™ 
a To her this locket — to my sister take : 
" I charge her wear it to her dying-hour. — 
" By Marco, need I more ?" — 

— Alas ! no more ! 

XI. 

First in the womb when throbs her infant boy, 
The conscious parent how she sighs with joy ! 



56 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Hah ! tiny stranger ! yet a season live — 
Blossom of love, awhile thy sweetness give ! 
Thee shall thy father — scarce with manhood's air — 
Hail into being, and in triumph bear. 
See palid beauty on her pillow rest, 
Hug, wildly fond, her baby to her breast, 
Kiss the small face, the fairy fingers raise, 
Smile on her lord, and melt him with the gaze . 
Come, daring pencil, dip in shades below, 
Reverse the picture, paint a mother's woe ! 
The widow droops, in blackest weeds, her head, 
Now widow'd twice — her only son is dead : — 
u My child ! my child !" anon the mourner cries, 
Leaps from her tranced gloom, and frenzied flies,— 
Then shrieking sinks at once : — the forky light 
So shoots its terror, and so sets in night. 
Lady, no further — mortal may not trace 
That cloud of horror brooding on her face ; — 
That cry so tearless — look of hopeless grief — 
That mute despair, that shudders at relief. 

XII. 

Immortal master ! Seer of passion's well ! 
Went unbequeath'd, Racine, thy matchless spell ? — 



Canto II. PADILLA. 57 

Lo ! 'tis Arricia — through the twilight glooms 
With trembling step she hurries by the tombs, 
Bright o'er the temple on his scented wing, 
Where Hymen waits her virgin-offering. 
Hah ! — sudden fear her boding heart consumes — 
With blood the moisten'd pathway freshly fumes : — 
She comes — she sees — O God avert her eyes ! — 
A pale and mangled corse her Hypolito lies. 
To doubt, — poor sceptick ! — she awhile may try, 
And call her lover — though she sees him by : 
Soon undeceiv'd ! — since now, alas ! is given 
Her glance of sorrow, that accuses Heaven ; — 
Sobbing and cold she sends a fainting sigh, 
Drops at her lover's feet — and seems to die. 
So far'd Pad ill a : since my conscious strain 
Shrinks from a task, it never might attain. 



XIII. 

Weeks, months are flown, since grief, the spoiler came, 
Blanch'd her dear cheek, and dimm'd her mental flame ; 
Since first her couch the beauteous maniac fled, 
To pace the gallery with noiseless tread, 



58 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Where her wan figure by the moon-beam's light 
Seem'd like a spirit gliding through the night. 
With ringlets loosen'd and her dark-blue eye, 
Upward she looks — how calm ! — how piteously ! 
Seated at length, along her brows of snow, 
Streams a full ray, that deeply shades below — 
So woe-struck all — so motionless her air — 
She'd seem of marble, were it not less fair. 
And oft she started, as her clouded mind 
Trac'd its fond phantom on the midnight wind; — 
Pale, pale in sooth, but smiling heav'nly kind. 
Unarm'd it comes — though on its shroud, I ween, 
Twine the red-branch, with Erin's tuft of green — 
And blood, she said, was oozing from its side ; 
For on that shroud a stain was redd'ning wide. 
Slowly she rises — slowly, tott'ring mov'd, 
With arms inviting, as to one belov'd ; 
While wildly — strangely mingle in her air, 
Mistrustful hope, and sadness, and despair : 
Then shortly stopping, as the vision fled, 
Deems it unkindly done — and waves her pensive head. 



XIV. 

East on the castle- terrace come the sun- 
He woos the flowers that round the lattice run, 



Canto II. PADILLA. 59 

Till he may peep upon their leafy bed ; 

Then steals the tear-drop, morning loves to shed. 

In vain his softest glow that sun assumes, 

No more, no more, her cheek the light relumes ; 

Nor may Valencia's breath so prodigal, 

Of life so prodigal, one rose recal. 

Her ebon-couch — her feeble frame reclin'd — 

Her snowy fingers on her bosom join'd — 

Her locks of sablest jet and veil, that drew 

So strongly forth the paleness of her hue : — 

All, for an instant, bid the maid appear 

A saint in virgin-state upon her bier. 

But lenient time has come — her looks express 
A plaintive peace, a gleam of tenderness. 
Her aged mother, though the hand of grief 
Weigh on her soul too heavy for relief, 
Would fain her fated hour retard awhile 
To cheer her child with struggle for a smile : 
And much it sooths her, that no hectic streak 
Now, as she kiss'd it, mar her angel's cheek ; — 
The dove-like gentleness, pluming her crest, 
A season ruffled, nestles in her breast. 

It is not all : — sent, like a dream of pain, 
A thought, 'twould seem, comes crossing on her brain : 



60 PADILLA. Canto IL 

Call it not frenzy — though in sooth there strays 

Some wildness still that flutters on her gaze : 

Fleet, wary, and uncertain, as the light 

Of autumn's landscape fading on the sight. 

" 'Tis true," she cried, " and it indeed were strange, 

" If aught, in one so doted on, could change : — 

" Yet, what is death ? — This little hand of mine, 

" My poor Alonzo, never may be thine : — 

a Grieve we not — grieve we not, my friend, my love, — 

" Though woe-worn here, we all shall meet above ! — 

" Forgive me, mother, when my brow, 'tis true, 

" Comes burning thus — I know not what I do. 

" Better became it, that with filial art 

ts I suck'd the death-drops from thy wounded heart ! — 

" I do, sweet mother ! I do strive — in vain, — 

" Well, well — the pang is past — I'm well again." 

Yet twice ere evening with her star of woe, 
Look'd with meet pity on the world below ; 
Twice, when she haply heard, or deem'd she heard 
The clank of armour, gateway, drawbridge stirr'd — 
" 'Tis he — 'tis Ferdinand, 'tis he," she cried, 
Flew from her couch — flung, flung the casement wide ; 
An instant changes — with a sigh profound 
Now wanders heavily her eye around : 



Canto II. FADILLA. 61 

Long on her locket looks of mourning stray ; 
She kiss'd it next — then burst in tears away. 

And when the sun, in bright departure press'd 
His crown of glory on the mountain-crest ; 
With sudden start, that spurn'd Alonzo's aid, 
Along the twilight-stream or down the glade 
She glanc'd — and glimm ring, with a plaintive call 
Of brother ! brother ! fled the castle-wall : 
Seem'd to the traveller winding down the steep. 
Beneath were summer-meteors on the sweep ; 
Or better, some illusion of the eye — 
So swift she past — so brightly vanish'd by. 



XV. 



Romance ! fair traitress ! — if as false as fair — 
What child of thine hath ceas'd to love thee e'er ? 
How soon, enchantress ! did thy song, thy spell, 
Lure the young Castro to thy wayward cell ! — 
Thence — as he deem'd it — from the viewless brake 
Was heard the Trouveur's tale along the lake ; 43 
While down the wave the swan, with arched neck, 
Mov'd like a queen with nations at her beck. 



62 PADILLA. Canto II. 

The hoary steep that frowns o'er Teruel, 
The copse, the streamlet, and the broken dell ; 
The torrent foaming from its flinty bed, 
Though lonely now, were not untenanted : 
For, as he view'd, in rapture and amaze, 
That mountain bursting through its purple haze, 
Would knights and ladies on his fancy throng, 
As round he sail'd his little world of song. 

Despite its lessons rude, no after-time 
Hath swept away those visions of his prime : 
But, since in triumph laughing Love led on 
His captive — Ah ! too willing to be won ! — 
More often far, and in retreat from men 
His hand had borrow'd pencil and the pen ; 
Nor less the chisel, at whose magic sway 
Affection lives, and Sorrow weeps away : — 
Such well of yore the Grecian artist knew, 
And the young painter kindles to review. 
He — fond enthusiast ! startles from a dream, 
Where e'en his sleeping lingered on the theme ; 
From short repose he hurries to his toil, 
And faintly sheds a hesitating smile : 
Full on the bust, and many a midnight o'er 
Propt on his easel how he loves to pore ! 



Canto II. PADILLA. 63 

A pause — a lengthen'd pause — he shifts the light- 
Pauses again — protracts the strange delight ; 
While o'er his face the flame reflected plays, 
And grief and wonder mingle in his gaze. 

What though perchance to seasons of distress 
Pursuits like these lend little manliness ; 
And though 'tis wisdom would perchance forego 
The darkest of all woe — fictitious woe — 
Yet well the wand'rer Hope was welcom'd so / 
Back to Alonzo's home — long to sojourn I 
For now unto the maid he saw return 
Heart-ease: — as when, though late, the vernal-time, 
Escap'd from winter and his surly clime, 
Comes with her timid step and flow'ry urn. 
Yes ! Hope returns — as Love too will return, 
Though ne'er, their lamps once quench'd, so brightly 

may they burn. 
Lady ! thou lov'st to ponder by the brine, 
When sweetly sleeping in the pale moonshine ; — 
By him 'twas most affected, when the light 
Scarce gave the canopy of waves to sight ; 
That curling, roaring, breaking, foam'd a-shore. 
Then proudly swept them back — in scorn he swore. 



64 PADILLA. Canto II. 

So now he stands on the rock's outmost hight, 

Nervous and pale — the genius of the night ! 

His mantle on the wind, his forehead bare, 

He looks — nor deems how soon he shall be there : — 

Looks on the waters wild ; then sends along, 

Send sea-ward, his involuntary song: 

tc My muse ! my mistress ! — thou wert such to me, 
" E'en thou most faithful, when few others be : 
" Foul, foul, befal the tongue that rails at thee ! 
" Thanks for my hours of bliss most heavenly ! 
" Yet I will call thee while distresses bend, 
" No fabled goddess — but a real friend. 
" When not the night-winds that around me roll 
" Were darkness to the darkness of my soul; 
" When scarcely struggling sense could longer bear, 
" A moment shook, and waver'd on despair; 
" Recoil'd with horror as the eddying brain 
" Turn'd from its pest, yet sought to turn in vain : 
" So from the Puma would the courser fly 
" Swift o'er the desert with his torture/cry. 
'• In vain — the mischief, with her clinging claws, 
" Dabbles in blood, and to his vitals gnaws : 
" So by Spitsbergen, where the ice-hills shine, 
" Bursts in dismay the monarch of the brine; 



Canto II. PADILLA. (Jo 

u Lash'd by his tail the realms of water shake, 

" And Biscay fishers at the thunder wake,** 

a Wake in their sea-tost skiff, that never sleeps — 

" Down with his finny foe the monster sweeps 

" E'en to the courts — the holies of the deeps ; 

" Then upward flings him, madden'd with his pain, 

" In mighty ruin rolls and dies the main — 

" Angel of verse ! dear lenitive of woe ! 

" To thee my reason — yea, my life I owe." 



XVI. 

Thus far, and Moniz' curs'd with full success \ 
'Tis oft a curse, yet never worshipp'd less : 
Her brother's riddance fell defers a space 
What — what but in the thought were death to face, 
A space defers, and " ever shall," he cried. 
And now, as if the fiends were on his side, 
He died — the only man he fears hath died ; 
Alike that murd'rer as the murder'd lies 
In his dark home, he recks not of their rise. 

What follows next ? The road is plain, I ween, 
And who have enter'd blood, will deeply in. 

F 



66 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Yet lives his rival : — wherefore ? Is his life 
More proof? In Spain no other hireling knife ? 
Is it he loves him, whom he lov'd so late ? 
He doth not love him — no ; nor yet can hate : 
He hath no friend — he feels that he hath none ; 
But cannot quite forget, he once had one : — 
For friendship's memory — as of the dead — 
Awhile will linger, though itself be fled. 

The black remorse, the agonies of soul. 
The base may feel them not — the proud control : 
In weaker minds, that guilty passions tear, 
The scorpion-scourges — searching pangs are there. 

Liken not Moniz to his rapier-hilt ! 
That guilty breast, that seem'd not made for guilt, 
Was deeply racking and full cruelly : — 
And when he look'd upon that wrong'd lady, 
So sad — so jealous — so remorsefully — 
'Twere plain, perchance, unto another eye : 
Still Castro doubts not. Was he therefore blind ? 
Ah ! rather own we, that the noblest mind 
In friendship as in love foresees not less, 
Though proudly with its own devotedness, 
It stake, it throw — content if losing it, 
That life shall with its dreams at once be quit 



Canto II. PADILLA. 67 



XVII. 

Train' d as was Moniz' youth beneath their eye, 
Alonzo's parents long had lov'd the boy ; 
Nor might endure to see him wasting by. 
Wave we the circumstance, the hint, the sigh, — 
Push'd home, was solv'd at length the mystery. 
'Twas a damn'd feigning scene — and cost his all : 
He felt within him, as if blood, like gall, 
Dropp'd acid as the Dead-sea on his heart : — 
To bid that pang of misery depart, 
He yet hath strength — hath for a moment so. 

All have their feelings and perchance less slow 
Than wisdom whisper'd,^is inclin'd to flow ! 
Yet must he feel for one, so fondly worn, 
Worn with his soul. — Had he not deeply sworn 
To live — to die too, as his brother will'd ? 
Bled in his goblet ? poiz'd his blazon'd shield ? 45 
The flower, so sadly drooping, rose, 'tis true, 
Pad ill a rose : — yet thence his terrors grew. 
Yes ! she was lovely — bright, as morning bright : 
But, ah ! how youthful, thoughtless, and how light I 

v 2 



68 PADILLA. Canto II. 

By early pride how future life was crost, 
When, on a single die, our hopes were stak'd and lost I 
Pity it were ! — 'Twould lessen much his fear, 
Were the rash union but deferr'd a year : — 
Then might he choose— or clasp her as his own, 
If not more worthy, yet they'd grant more known. 

So gloz'd the traitor— and the parents' mind, 
Marvel not lady, though such arts could blind. 
Yet how proceed ?— - 

Still, still his friend had shewn 
A soul for glory heated as his own : — 
Brethren in arms, became it fame they sought, 
From golden tourney to the field well-fought ; 
Laurel and blood, too true, might home bestow, 
And Moslem Bucar was no vulgar foe ; 
Yet had they hop'd— nor deem their ardour vain — 
To hail bright battle on his Syrian plain, ^ 
Plant their black-cross and triumph side by side : — 
Their Spanish chivalry should soon decide, 
If France alone be glory's blessed heir. 

The father ponder'd, with unwilling ear, 
The mother heard, and felt a mother's fear. 
Yet was she calm'd :— Spain's wa^ a troublous shore, 
Perils hung thickly, time seem'd fraught with more ; 



Canto IT. PADILLA. 69 

While o'er the east, or pilgrims' taunts were vain, 
Less war, than splendour, held of late the reign. 



XVIII. 

No instant pang, though death be on its wing, 
To the 'numb'd victim may the bullet bring : — 
E'en so, the wretch, with wounds tearing the heart, 
May smile through ruin, nor reveal a smart. 
Struck at the tidings, with a single sigh 
Has Castro bow'd :— then in extremity, 
" Adjur'd— be thou adjur'd, Moniz, both 
" By friendship, and thy plighted brother-oath, 
" Leave not the land — but one, to me most dear, 
" See thou protect her with a brother's fear." 
Not e'en might Moniz, surely, fail to bless 
This last wild pledge of friendship in distress ? 
Alas ! to him alike what's thought or done— 
The feelings of his soul are all in one. 

XIX. 

Pass we the parting— when the parents, late, 
Burst o'er their child and fain would change his fate ; 



70 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Nor sacriligeously presume to steal, 
Where love and holy sorrow draw the veil; 
Where thrice Alonzo, struggling for reply, 
Might speak, but with his agonizing eye ; 
And poor Padilla with that thought again, 
That very madd'ning thought of her sick brain, 
Sobb'd in his arms — " thougji only love of mine, 
" Too true 'twas told, I never may be thine." 

Fair in the west Valencia's turrets rose, 
As down the stately wave the vessel goes ; 
The black-cross knight, that o'er its side is bent, 
Seems living less, than bust or monument ! 
The crackling cordage and the seaman rude 
Bustle around :— to him 'tis solitude ! 
Cold, mutely poring, with unconscious eye, 
On glitt'ring billows— shallop skimming by. 
Morn of his life, so dark and dreary quite, 
What, what shall be the herald of its night? 



XX. 

" Ye, who the sickness of the heart endure, 
u Whom Hope deserts, and Time denies a cure ; 



Canto II. PADILLA. 71 

" Till, as advancing on the road of fate, 

" Your minds start back to see it desolate : 

" Then, when your bosoms, heaving for relief, 

" Would vainly labour to unload their grief: 

" When the parch'd palate and the sunken eye 

u Portend no tear — but cold delirium nigh ; 

" And the false smile, that passes in a breath, 

" Like Heav'n's blue lightning, seems to herald death— 

" Come, come — with me these raving billows tread ; 

" Our rest, thou stormy world ! is with the dead." 

The song was Castro's, while the tempest's light, 
Sheeting the waves, his soul was with the sight ; 
But lowlier sunk, when peace was on the tide : 
And " wherefore sing ?" he said, " there was a guide 
" Whose taste could cheer me, and whose judgment 

chide : 
a Of her no more ; — My eye is jaundic'd quite ; 
" Nature, e'en nature's loveless in its sight. — 
" The heavens are starry; — in the leeward waves, 
" The moon her curly front of tresses laves ; 
" While o'er the left, the mountain and the sea 
w Blend coldly in their purple canopy. 
" All rest around, save restless me, I ween, 
" Pacing the deck-way— not to bless the scene : 



72 PADILLA. Canto II. 

" And when, ere long, the sun leaps to his throne, 
" None here shall greet him ; — I am here alone.' ' 



XXI. 

Padilla's breast what floods of sorrow swell, 
What heart-wrung sorrow, is not mine to tell : 
Who, who may tell what bitter sacrifice 
Is young, is virgin love ? — And lo ! her mother dies. 
Now she indeed was cheerless and alone, 
Her brother— parents— lover— all are gone. 
Still reason staid ; — and strange it was to tell 
How one, of yore so fragile, bore so well ! 
The mind affrighted sinks at fate's first blow, 
But, rais'd again, will oft inure to woe. 



XXII. 

Friendship ! howe'er by saint or sage defin'd 
The balm of life, the med'cine of the mind :— 
But, no ;— not always false— I say not so ; 
Yet rarely to be found, and hard to know ! 



Canto II. PADILLA. 73 

Hah ! e'en when found, what art thou but a flow'r 
Brilliant and frail— the plaything of an hour ? 
Scarcely, believe me lady, a friend appears 
In morning-life, who gilds its setting years. 

Eliza gone too ! — she who wont to be 
Friend — parent— sister — every thing to me ! 
Far other were the dreams, that sooth'd her boy, 
Her latest sorrow — but her early joy ! 
Dearly he thought to close his follies' scope, 
Rise from his faults, nor quite deceive her hope. 
Fond, fruitless wishes all !— e'en this poor line 
Meets not her eye— it only mfeetfc her shrine. 
Lady, I doubt not, no — her spirit's fled 
To brighter regions ; — but for me she's dead ! 
O'er her cold grave- stone, where I nightly creep, 

Have I not wept ? — and must for ever weep ? 
Ah ! it were better shun affection's strife. 

Damp the fine feelings that embitter life ; 

Flutter around, to all, with winsome art, 

Give hand and smile — but never give the heart. 
Would I then wish to yield thy memory ? 

'Tis now— Eliza— all I hold of thee ! 

Angel of mine ! — for, surely if there be 

An angel province, it was thine for me— 



74 PADILLA. Canto II. 

How to thy sacred lessons do I owe 
Much that I know, and all the best I know ! 
How thrill'd my infant bosom at thy praise 
Of worth recorded in those ancient days — 
Scipio who triumph'd — Regulus who died — 
And Cato's god-like strength — without his pride ! 
How — as through Smarmor's groves we oft would go. 
Till, from the well-lov'd height, we view'd below 
The gold west glowing, and the twilight star 
Marching from sea-ward in his diamond car — 
Thy words reveal'd, with heav'nly wisdom fraught, 
Such mighty truths surpassing mortal thought ! — 
What noble end was man's !— His home on high, 
Here thou but deem'dst his journey to the sky, 
Where virtue reigns, and all the good are met : 
Who thus forgets thee, may his God forget ! 

Did friendship sooth Padilla ?— God above, 
When unprotected woman weeps her love, 
Is there not something, Maker, in her spell 
Of pearly tears, to melt a, heart of hell ? — 
Moniz, 'mid all her woe|, her worst of woe ! 
True, he had mingled in her sorrow's flow ; 
Nor quite devoid of manhood's nobler part, 
Her person little, would achieve her heart. 



Canto II. PADILLA. 75 

For this he curb'd alike his joys and hate, 
He feign'd a tear for e'en his rival's fate ; 
Wept at her feet, and lick'd the dust below : 
Unhappy, untaught mortal ! not to know 
Submission and the abject plaints of earth 
Please infant love — but never gave him birth. 
At length, arising from his posture low, 
The blush of pride, like lightning on his brow, 
His eye-balls rolling wild, his mutter'd curse, 
Stuck to her bosom fear, and 'boded worse. 

Looking around, she gather'd what distress 
Is the soul's feeling of its loneliness : 
The drowning ship-boy, in a midnight sea 
Was not more desolate, more lone than she. 
Her castle — once so vocal with the lay 
Of lord, of Troubadour, of lady gay ; 
Whose little foot-page, like a child of morn, 
Announc'd her palfrey by his silver horn — 
Was but a prison now, where Moniz reign'd 
Reign'd uncontroll'd ; and, when the bridge unchain'd, 
Tell in the twilight hour, 'twas but a scout 
With rumours of the Moor warring without. 
The grey domestics of her train no more 
Were seen ; and, as she pass'd the corridore, 



76 PADILLA. Canto II, 

Unknown and unco6th faces met her eye. 
Moniz had deign' d each soothing art to try ; 
Those unavailing, fear he deem'd must do : — 
That mind, so seeming weak, he little knew. 



XXIII. 

Calmly she sate : save, when he ventur'd name 
Her all-ador'd, a glance of horror came 
So pale and wildly, it a moment sought 
To read his soul, and pluck its very thought. 
But, prouder feelings quick returning forth, 
Light, like the fitful crimsons of the north 1 
Her cheek so burning, eye so flashing bright, 
It strangely suited one so airy-light. 
" O God !" she kindling cried, " O God of bliss ! 
" Have I then liv'd to hear a threat like this ? 
" Am I alone ?— alone I cannot be ; 
u Or has not my Alonzo bled with thee ? 
u Art thou not his by ev'ry dreaded tie 
" Of Heaven and man ? And durst thy villainy 
" To name his very name, and mean me wrong ? 
" Upon thy soul thou durst not !— Fool ! how long 



Canto II. PADILLA. 77 

" Paltry, preposterous fool, must this endure? 
" Know, I am his beyond the hopes of cure — 
" By love, by maiden vow, by all am his : 
" Or, were this heart to deem of him amiss, 
" And meanly jealous trust thy damning lie, 
" What might it do, but break indignantly ?" — 

No more did Moniz hear : but held that form, 
Bright in its wrath, as angel of the storm. 
She, whe#£ the flame of spirit, fiercely brief, 
Fainted within her, melted in her grief. 

XXIV. 

Again, though faintly, Scotland's highlands peer 47 — 
Scenes early honor'd ! — since how sadly dear ! 
Shall we not turn, to breathe a last adieu, 
Ere quite they vanish in the distant blue ? 

Majestic north, farewell ! farewell once more 
Strange land of Freedom, Poetry, and Lore ! 
By limpid Tay what thousand wonders dwell ! 
Far-fam'd Dunsinane, Killicranky's dell ; 
Thy palace Scone, the pride of former years, 
And scenes of Scotland's hope, and Scotland's tears ! 

On Ness, or Leven, when short summer peers, 



78 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Peers on each frozen lake and snowy height, 
Not Spain — not India shews a beam more bright. 
And thee, Loch-lomond thee — but thou wilt blame 
The hand untutor'd, and its daring aim ; 
Like Oza, when it ventur'd on thy state, 
Fearing, unholy hand ! that Hebrew's fate : 
His fate — aspiring vainly to retrace 
The mountain grandeurs of thy dwelling-place. 
Ah ! mother, were the brush e'en feebly true, 
You'd love your child the more, such heav'nly scene 
he drew ! 
Lady, so sad ? — Yet sadness well, I ween, 
Accords bleak Lanark, with thy cheerless scene ; 
Where one scath'd birch lies lifeless on the waste, 
Roars wintry Anan, howls the lurcher past ; 
And a rare shepherd-boy, with meagre flock, 
Cowers in his grey-strip'd plaid behind the rock. 
Not with us, lady, always far'd it so ; 
Deeply we drank of rapture, as of woe : 
Recall's! thou ne'er ? — so oft recall'd by me ! — 
By Oatland's shadowy wave, what joys wont be; 
When, haply thus, each absence of a morn 
Lent a new lay to greet thee on return : 



Canto II. PADILLA. 79 

SONG. 

Thou lovely Thames ! how brightly beam 
Thy waters, like some silvery lyre ! 

How soft the music of thy stream, 
As if an angel wak'd the wire ! 

And will thy waves be always bright ? 

And always sweetly warbling so ? 
Thou lovely Thames ! 'twould grieve my sight. 

To see thy stream more rudely flow. 

Full many a love — but none like ours — 
Thy summer-barks have gaily borne ; 

Thy rose and lilies lent their flow'rs, 
And elms and plane their foliage worn. 

Belinda ! seem'd these hours of bliss 
Foredoom'd upon thy peace to prey, 

I'd court no longer scenes like this, 
But mourn, in exile, far away! 

Yes ! though I twin'd thee in these arms — 
Less closely, Thames, thine osiers twine — 

And rav'd and fainted o'er thy charms, 
Till all my life and soul was thine ; 



80 PADILLA. Canto II, 

I'd seek no more for rapture's sigh, 

No more enfold thee, beauteous flow'r ; 

But shrink and pine — perchance to die — 
And almost bless our parting hour. 



XXV. 

Now fifteen weary days the sun had been 
On his unvaried round ; nor had he seen 
Paoilla's foe return : — yet she no more 
Might bide to venture from her chamber-door. 
'Twas that same chamber, dress'd in happier hours. 
The Greek rotunda and the sculptur'd flowers. 
He, whom it waited, died ! — and sorrow's sprite 
Had thrice denTd it on his wings of night ! — 
Such thoughts of mourning, and the silent air 
Kept a strange variance with the gayness there : 
And, when the alabaster lamp and vase, 
From their bronze tripod shed a silver blaze 
All on the silken couch and pale cheek there, 
It seem'd a sepulchre — vain, vain repair 
Of sorrow ling'ring so, e'en wisdom's eye 
Will not ungently chide the piteous mockery. 



Canto II. PADILLA. 13 

Not but, by times, to one so buoyant quite, 
A dream of hope, a star upon her night 
Rose for a moment ; — then she gaz'd on high, 
With rapture flutt'ring in that dark-blue eye : 
So, when the south monsoon — whose clouds combine 
Beyond Sumatra, Ceylon, and the Line — 
Weighs upon Siam, on the watry waste 
Weighs on the wat'ry waste, all black and vast ; 
While, spite his hundred slaves and golden shed 
The snow-white elephant droops down his head, ** — 
Come but a breeze, keen o'er the trackless lee, 
Where Tartars prick, or China's fields of tea, 
The deluge ebbs— and Nature, like a bride, 
Puts off her weeds a space, smiling in pride. 

Alas ! how transient what could thus beguile 
Padilla's gloom ! and when she mus'd awhile 
On all she suffer'd, all she fear'd from fate, 
Her traitor-guardian, her imprison'd state ; 
Or, might she flee, yet whither could she flee ? — 
Her brain went turning, and she felt despair, 
Entwin'd within her, shed his venom there ; 
His dark misgivings, and those doubts of woe, 
That wretches know, and e'en the good may know, 

G 



82 PADILLA. Canto It 

And, hark ! she started : on the marble-way 
I said 'twas night, and by the pale lamp's ray — 
Ling'ring and softly steps were heard to pass. 
Can this be Moniz ? — but how changed, alas ! 
How chang'd from him — him fair and courteous all, 
Bright in the tourney — brighter in the ball I 
Half had she deem'd a spectre wander'd by — 
So bending was his form, so sunk his eye 
Of darken'd red ; so ill would paleness speak 
The damp, the unfleshy whiteness of his cheek— 
Shew'd not the fev'rish panting of his frame, 
A life still glowing, and a soul of flame. 
" Padilla !" — while he trembl'd on her name 
He sunk into a seat — " Padilla, see ; 
" See, luckless lady, what is come of thee ! 
" Have I not woo'd thee with a lover's care ? 
" But thou regard'st me as the passing air. 
" Well, woman is a nettle, rudely pluck'd — 
" A stingless thing. — The tigress, all unsuck'd, 
" Wild from her midnight walk, that finds no more 
" Her whelps, and frights the forest with her roar, 
" Felt grief nor rage like mine. — Yes ! my rack'd 

soul, 
" Ere thus resign'd to ruin and control. 



Canto II. PADILLA. 83 

" Rav'd round its prison, like a sp'rit of sin, 

" Howling for exit from the flames within ! 

" Am I not sorely scath'd ? — I could not bide, 

a In sooth I could not ; for my utmost pride, 

{t Thy love, though hopeless quite, to quite resign ; 

u Or stab thy heart, although it makes thee mine. — 

" For there's a secret, none shall else divine ! — 

a Hast thou no pity for my fallen state ? 

" But I too much have suffer'd ! — It were late : 

u Sought e'en thy love to ease this tortur'd brow, 

" 'Twere vain. — Not Heaven's sweet rain might cool 

it now ! 
" Look, look, Padilla — let me bare this face — 
" Shews it no seal of crime ? — No Cain-like trace ? 
" Is all still human here ? may nought declare 
" The man of blood ? the ruthless murderer ? 
w Ay, ay, Padilla — of thy brother's blood 1" 
Deem you she fainted ? and what living flood 
Still stain'd her cheek ran coldly to its source ?— 
She chang'd not— no ; — perchance depriv'd of force : 
But, fair and tranquil, as the wonders seen 
Along the path, where pestilence has been 
Scaring the Red-sea with his breath of flame — 
Death lies on all, yet all appear the same : 

g 2 



S4 PADILLA. Canto II. 

'Twere fearful, sooth, to touch her as she lay, 
Lest, like those lifeless forms, to dust she fall away. 

He, were it only for thy pangs, Remorse, 
Had, like the comet, held his impious course ; 
That scorns to tremble, though it fright the sky : 
But feelings, wilder than the tempest's cry, 
War in his breast, and burst alternately ! — 
With his last words resistless fury broke, 
His nerves were iron, and a demon spoke ; 
While, in the socket of each redden'd eye 
Seem'd every passion rous'd for mastery : 
Now strength and rage are sunk upon his air, — 
His limbs go trembling : — sorrow, love, despair, 
Speak as they pass unutterably there ! 
But most his look was piteous, when he bore 
His slow hand from his side :— that hand was bath'd in 

gore ! 49 
" Padilla, see !— this heart at least can bleed ! 
" Might I but weep too ! — that were strange indeed ! 
" Maid, could I weep ! O maid, I'd weep for 

thee : — 
" This sad confession seals thee unto me. 
" Ruin'd alike, methinks beneath this ray 
" We each might stare each other's life away 



Canto II. PADILLA. 85 

" To marble.— Rather, rather live awhile : 

" A nuptial bed remains us to defile ; 

" And though hereafter angels should deplore 

" That sulli'd bosom is itself no more; 

" Though from this breath thou should'st imbibe a 

dole, — 
" Dole of its hell, and horror, past control, 
" Take his long watch, and walk upon thy soul ; — 
" E'en so, 'tis something, that thou shalt be mine. 

" Stains not my head that brother's blood of thine ? 
" Thy lover — but sponge, sponge such hopes from thee, 
" E'en now he reads— and from this hand you see 
" His Moniz 7 treason ! — what from all my mind 
u Lost with her honours, what remains behind, 
" But love, but rav'ning love and constancy ? 
" I cut through friendship — 'twas my Gordian tie. 
" Yes, proud one, yes— I e'en am blasted so : 
" And all for what? To prune my purpose now ? 
" Tortures of mine ! whose bleeding witnesses 
" Ooze with a sweat, and bathe my side like this ! 
" I go — I go — and, like the Cobra's prey, 
" Corrupt by piece-meal, and dissolve away ! 
u Yes ! Lady, I dissolve; — but fiercer come 
" My ardent spirits, challenging their home 



86 PADILLA. Canto II 

" Of fire. — And, though that angel-smile, alas ! 
" Might only flout this wreck of what I was, — 
(C Smile, if thou durst, and I will pluck it me, 
" Like the last eastern rose, quitting its tree 
" To scent no banquet — but embalm the dead. 
" But thou wilt hate me more ! — Be comforted, 
" My soul, though going on the jaws of Fate, 
" She cannot hate me as myself I hate. 

" You know me, Lady, not of that fat mould, 
{i Whom jeering priests have fitly styl'd their fold 
tc In this besotted time : — when I do swear, 
" Came nightly to me, since I last was here, 
" Thy mother, as she liv'd, do thou revere 
u No brain-sick coinage! — and so sadly spoke, 
" Ay, all her looks, another heart had broke. 
"• I grinn'd — I struck— at nothing, said my stroke ; 
" I madden'd — still 'twas there ; — I roll'd to ground— 
" Still changeless sadness on her cheek was found : — 
" Then 'twas I gnaw'd my flesh in my despair : 
" Accurs'd, accurs'd, begone ! this outward air 
" Is not for thee. Yet come— but when she's blest, 
" Come, see the riot of thy daughter's breast ! 
" Her kiss of bitterness, her sob of woe, 
" And other tenderness than lovers know : 



Canto II. PADILLA. 87 

H Or if, sweet ghost, it be a dreary joy, 

" Call thy own God to blast me from his sky :— 

" To rob me of my prey, there is but he. 

" O thou eternal God ! — since such there be — 

- Much am I stricken : yet, awhile on high 
u Hold thy red-arm; — for I would justify 

" Such portion of thy wrath as ne'er was huiTd ! 
u Set as the mark to teach a guilty world 

- How with Omnipotence ^'twere vain to vie : — 
" If, in thy magazines, do truly lie 

- Infinite vengeance — infinite as crime. 

u Away, away — no more we trifle time : 
" Nor tales, Padilla, like a suitor tell : 
" Three days, and thou art mine !— 'Till then, fare- 
well." 



XXVI. 

The moon was up ; and, from her starry dome. 
Tipping with gems Alhambra's curly foam : 
But Guadalaviar's wave, serenely bright, 
Shew'd where her silver mirror lay that night. 

Queen of the skies ! though others have it so, 
Thou ne'er didst sympathize with mortal woe ! 



88 PADILLA. Canto II. 

Else were a maid in Liria-of-the-laye 

To dim the lustre of thy tearless way. 

'Twas the third night — the vigil of Ike doom : — 

.A 

How calm — how colourless — the cold beams come 

Along the pictured and banner'd hall, 

Where trophies rare and 'scutcheons deck the wall ! 

Lo ! in that armory there now was seen 

A sight full fair, though sadly fair, I ween. 

Is it a lady ? or alone some flower 
Of Fancy's pencil on the lovely hour ? — 
Softly she glides — and, from the buttress-height, 
Has ta'en a suit of silver, small and light ; 
Alonzo's, when a page. — Appears, the thought 
Her trembling presence, strength, and couragebrought ! 
The white-plum'd casque — but, ere it fit her head, 
Thrice her dark tresses on her shoulders spread :— 
Turning to knot them — Moon ! — she lifts an eye 
That views thy state, methinks, rebukingly. 

Now cap-a-pe — 'tis now a page so bright. 
White is her pennon'd spear — her faulchion white ; 
She all is silver- white, from spur to crest; 
All — save the small round blazon on her breast, 
Castro's half lion, rampant in its gold 
And th'azure rings Janazio won of old, 50 



Canto II. PADILLA. 89 

With English Arthur and his barons bold : 
Shewing so brilliant, yet so stilly there, 
Like magic vision on the midnight air. 

And, hush ! that vision moves ! — Yet all is mute : 
No tread betrays her with her beaver' d boot. 
She breathes, — the oiled portals glide ; — she downward 

turns, 
By Moniz' chamber, — there a light still burns ; — 
By hound — by centinel — yet not a cry ; — 
Or drugs, or wine, their senses stupify. 
Along the gallery is death's repose, 
Why hold her breath ? why doubtful as she goes ? 
'Tis lest the gnat, her fancy conjures nigh, 
Awake the castle as he buzzes by ; — 
'Tis, lest the westward window, shedding there 
A painted ray, be lamp upon the stair. 

The noble staircase is descended now ; 
Where knights and bearded princes, many a row, 
In guise o'th'olden courts — a vaunted line ! — 
Tell from their frames what art is most divine. 
They, like the guardians of their orphan-child, 
She saw, and was consol'd — the pictures smil'd. 51 

On the last step she lingers,^ — and may soon 
Mount on the breezes — mingle with the Moon — 



90 PADILLA. Canto II. 

If earthly aught, her flight is at at end. 

Ten armed figures on the floor extend 

In sordid rest : the leap, too wide, below 

Shews not a cranny for that fairy toe ! 

Yet may she venture from the midst — with fear — 

To move the gauntlet of yon cuirassier. 

Pausing between, she thrice that gauntlet takes, 

And drops again, as he in slumber shakes ; 

At length 'tis on his mailed breast — and, lo ! 

With outstretch'd lance, she places there her toe ; 

Then rests — on tip-toe rests — for staringly 

Full on her visor is that ruffian's eye : 

But still his wilder'd brain the banquet steeps, 

He mutters — crosses for the ghost — and sleeps. 

Instant she springs — she lights — no sound might tell ; 

The falling feather not more noiseless fell. 



XXVII. 

cur 

Rais'd the portcullis stands — awhile the gates- 
The drawbridge down, too — and a courser waits : 
He, by the silver stirrup, bent and grey, 
'Tis old Antonio — how his features say— 



Canto II. PADILLA. g\ 

« Virgin of virgins ! from this vale of woe 

" Thy servant goes resigned ! — Yet, oh ! yet, oh ! — 

" And this last lightning serves it but to shew 

(i My noble mistress must unguarded fly ? — 

u Mistress of mine ! yet take thy courage high, 

" And take, my child, — though God will be with you — 

" It never .did y&k harm ! — an old man's blessing too." 

She bends — 'twas seeming all — no sound might be — 

None — save his dying kiss upon her knee, 

Or morning's earliest breeze her plume above ; 

And, o'er the drawbridge, as she 'gins to move, 

That hemp-shod courser oft erects his ears, 

Scar'd, not beneath him his own hoof he hears. 

XXVIII. 

A ship was distant on Valencia's bay : 
" For Antioch ?" — " Yes ! and holds her sacred way 
" With sun-rise sparkling on the full sail's edge." — 
" I am a page, with the pope's privilege." — 
At once the boatmen leap ; with twice twelve oars 
Their bark receives, and shoots her from the shores: — 
" Hoist — hoist yon signal on the pinnace-head ! 
" The purple streamer, with the cross of red ! 



92 PADILLA. Canto II. 

" Row, jovial hearts ! we on the vessel gain !" — 
'Twas done.— Padilla sails along the main. 



XXIX. 

Smooth was that azure main : — a God, 'twere said 
By paynim bards, had rais'd his placid head, 
O'er ocean look'd, and bade the waves be still : 
Old, unenlighten'd times, what fables fill ! — 
Little our sailors reck'd of waves or wind, 
Their way was sacred ! 52 and their saint was kind I 



END OF CANTO II, 



Canto III. PADILLA. 93 



CANTO III. 



I. 



± hotect me, Heaven! — 'Tis Fortune's final 

blow! 
" You, Lady, you — on whom I doated so ? 
" My own — own — little woman — who at will 
" Bade, with a touch, my inmost fibres thrill? 
" What, fall'n for ever ? — What, reduc'd to this 
" My budding joys ? my little dream of bliss ? 
" Weak — wretched— toward heart ! — whose guidance 

long 
" Led me a- wrong, and leads me yet a-wrong : — 
"Oh! I could pluck thee, traitor, as I feel, 
" Hot from my side, and sear thee with the steel! 
" Come words of flame, be mine — but she is stone ; 
u And I, who mourn for both, may mourn alone. 
" Yet might she mourn — and half my anguish 

cease, 
" Could whispering promise bid her u part in peace!" 



94 PADILLA. Canto III. 

" Lady, begone ! — I shed no curse on thee — 

u Enough the scornings — none shall fall from me ! 

u What, thriftless — thriftless — squander, in a thrice, 

" The faithful heart — the gem without a price ? 

" For ever — cruel, cruel — must I on ? — 

" Lady, for ever — yes — begone — begone !" 

Forgive me, Aninhas, if such plaints befel, 
Even then, when dearer accents might be well : 
But grief, recorded thus, shall all be o'er ; 
And I shall sigh, and thou shalt chide no more. 
"Tis now some two years gone since Albion's strand 
Heard me reluctant, as I left her land : — 
" The distant tropic, or the battle's strife, 
" Though death to millions, may to me be life : — 
u Blow, breezes, blow — and thou free, fickle sea, 
Ci Make me — oh ! make me fickle, and as free !" 

Am I yet free ? those dark eyes say not so ; 
Lost they would have, but found would have me too : 
Well, let it be — for we have sail'd upon 
The moonlight Douro's wave, and wandered on 
From far Batalha— there we lingered much; 53 
You blush'd to think how Frenchmen could be such — 
Even to the rock — the Cid's and Teruel : 
But where the Alcazar stood, no stone might tell. 



Canto III. PADILLA. 95 

And when we come, Aninhas, where you own 
A tie more sacred by the flow'ry Rhone, 
'Twere hardship — passing hardship — could we part 
Without a sigh; but, talk not of the heart. 

To stroll with young love on his flowery way, 
Be pleas' d and piqu'd a thousand times a day ; 
Live in an eye, expire 7 pon a kiss, 

Or pine like God ! was manhood made for this ? — 

Wisdom, I court thee not— 'twere vain as ever— 
So sorely wounded, thou forgivest never : 
But of all nonsense love is the most wrong, 
The fool of Folly. — I'll unto my song. 



II. 

■'(ld.sU, 
Onward Padilla, nor^ coasting France, 5 * 

Left unenhail'd the Mother of Romance : 

Though all now desolate : — by Languedoc 

Were heard but rippling waves around the rock ; 

And off thy shores, Provence, she wonder'd more, 

And vainly listen'd for a Troubadour. 

Still were the scented groves, as still might be, 

Save convent-knell for deaths beyond the sea ; 



9(5 PADILLA. Canto III. 

Or the bride-widow, from her dim light tower, 
Who wept and pray'd away her lonely hour — 
And these the words the baby on her knee 
Shall learn to lisp — " All father's lost with thee." 55 



III. 

Immortal Rome ! 5f) What, mistress of the world, 
Shall fate, nor ages, see thy glories furl'd? 
No more thy men of mighty mind are seen, 
Thy Pompeys, Scipios, e'en thy Gods have been : 
Still thou shalt live ; beneath thy rolling eye 
Creation withers, 'til but doubtingly 
We blame his boast, who swore, upon thy throne, 
To awe mankind suffic'd his horse alone. 

Padilla's ancient faith, exalted high, 
These bolder times have nam'd credulity ; 
Yet could e'en she condemn the phantom dire 
Rising, disastrous, from the Caesars' pyre : 
For he was shapeless, as of mongrel race, 
Ashes and blood defile his changeful face ; 
Trembling, and foul with years, his cassock-hem 
He stains — unconscious of his rheum and phlegm; 
" Servant of Servants" he is styl'd by them, 



Canto III. PADILLA. 97 

Who, crouching — scourging — hail, with dol'rous 

cry, 
His hempen girdle of humility : 
But on his brows a crown was seen to tower, 
Beneath his wither d hand the nations' cower ; 
Judge by his voice — it suits an infant's bell ; 
Yet were his mandates of an import fell : 
Wind-like, and wing'd, they travers'd all the sky, 
Gath'ring their sound and fury as they fly; 
'Til Norse-men pause them at their bloody feast, 
And the mild Bramin trembled in the east: 
And ever and anon as backward hurl'd 
Those mandates roll, like thunder, o'er the world — 
Exulting, from his lethargy of age, 
That phantom, starting, ap'd immortal rage ; 
Kings were his footstool ! 

Many a land renown'd 
Now lying, as she sail'd, our maid around, 
She look'd with sorrow — for what age, so dead, 
Has left the classic story quite unread ? 
She look'd with sorrow for those scenes of old 
Her fancy drew, so lovely to behold, 
But blood and blasphemy might now reveal, — 
Wild " arm of iron" — English " cut the steel" 57 — 



98 PADILLA. Canto III. 

Franks, Lombard barons, Grecians, Turks, and he 
Who saw the " White- Knight" ride in Sicily :— 
Fanatics, cannibals, in deeds of ruth 
The most remorseless when their cause was truth ! 
" There Carthage stood," she said; "thence, 
fiercely wide, 
w The funeral pile came bearing down the tide 
" Its tragic tale of Tyrian Dido's sword — 
" Who bled for him her generous soul ador'd : 
" He, pious hero, on his lofty poop 58 
" Gather'd sweet sleep. 



IV. 



* v " The sun was seen to stoop 

" Ruddy and westward Bugaroni's steep, 
" 'Tis not his lamp that lingers on the deep ?" — 
Deem'd had she better what so feebly shone 
The fairies' lantern for their Oberon : — 
But soon more shines that feeble, feeble light ; r,y 
And now its tufted lustre trembles bright ; 
Now gathering — winding to tremendous size, 
Scares the mid air — or wavers, ere it rise, 



Canto III. PADILLA. 99 

Like some great snake with many a lambent tongue 
Licking the waters : — now supremely strong 
Curling and coiling, as in monstrous play, 
It fires th'horizon all, then shoots away 
Upward — and, having mingled with the sky, 
Drops from the blazing breach, and stands on high, 
Flaming and fashion'd, like in burnish'd gold 
Some giant column of Corinthian mold, 
Bearing a lady, with a cross of fire. 
Her face heaven's brightness hides, and is her tiar ; 
But all is dazzling ; not more dazzling-bright 
Arose the virgin in Bysantium's height, 
What time began the nightly escalade, 
Warning the Khacan, more than mortal aid 60 
Baffled his Albars. 

On the wondrous sight 
Padilla gaz'd, and thought on Tabor's light : — 
She gaz'd, when from her glory bending mild 
That lady smil'd — her very mother smil'd, 
Leant o'er the cross, and wav'd her radiant arm ! — 
Sign well remember'd, and that oft could charm 
To joy her daughter of the laughing eye, 
Amid the lilies in her own country ; 
And last repeated, but most solemnly, 

h 2 



100 PADILLA. Canto III. 

When rose th' expiring parent to reveal 

Those truths mysterious the pure sp'rit doth feel, 

When fluttering for its home. 

At that dear sign, 
Padilla judg'd she had not long to pine 
Below : — but most that mother's smile was dear ! 

Her fears, her griefs, I have not painted here ; 
Those for the lonely maid the heart must speak, 
These were unfelt at first — and one most weak 
Could lighten so, when her affections came, 
You mark'd her air of frenzy and of flame ; 
Nor mov'd, for wonder, though that lovely form 
Rush'd to its ruin wilder than the storm ! 
'Twas thus she threw her on the world alone, 
Reckless of self, and thought not but of one : 
Oh ! time brings thought ! — and, in her troubled eye, 
Much might be read ; but most a feeling high 
Of filial pride, and injur'd dignity! — • 
Judge then if, agoniz'd by doubt awhile, 
Judge if she doats on that approving smile. 

And, her guitar unhanging from the mast, 
Not uninspir'd her trembling music past, 
Sad in its sweetness as the prelude-hymn, 
Warbled melodious, when the cherubim — 



Canto III. PADILLA. 101 

Who, startling Heav'n, in their eternal strain, 
Had paus'd — attun'd their golden harps again ; 
Ere Grabriel knelt, they boded from his sigh 
Man's fall. 

It ceases, — for afresh, on high 
Tkat lady rising, veils her face from sight 
In glory intense. Heaven closes : — all is night ! 

The sailors, gazing on that vision bright, 
Wail'd o'er the waters for a ship on fire : 
They, when it fled, but saw the wreck expire, 
Turning them pale at ocean's mournful close : 
And, for Padilla's soul dissolving woes, 
Marvell'd a page should troll the battle-strain 
At Roncesvalles heard, and once again 61 
Where Norman William left the Saxon slain, — 
When u far more seemly were the virgin's prayer 
" For souls departed — if they Christians were." 



V. 



Speed, lady, speed ; — nor Venus, nor the doves. 
In Paphos dwell ; — there is no isle of loves : 
Speed, lady, speed ; though flutter down the flood 
Arabian breezes,— Foh !— they smell of blood ! 



102 PADILLA. Canto III. 

'Twas eve — 'twas banquet ; — for that ship at sea 
Was proud with fifty flow'rs of chivalry — 
The moon seen from their canvas canopy, 
Smiles on her couch of waves, that gently swell ; 
Of all the deities, who lov'd so well 
These isles and waters, and with loosen'd zone — 
Yes, all are vanished, save this fickle one. 

But gleesome is the ship as lighted hall, 
And song, and story, are sent round to all : 
" Sir Knight, whose mistress loves thy silver oak, 
" And proudly shews each fringed spear it broke, 
" Maintaining, through all Europe in assail, 
" Her peerless charms, we crave thee for a tale." — 

" My red-cross warriors command your knight ! — 
" Europe," he said, " shews many a glorious sight; 
" But, fair above them all, from land to sea, 62 
" Is Lusia's boast, th'unmatch'd Arabida. 
" From tide-swept Troya 63 winding ere the light, 
" With noon, or nearly noon, we gain'd that height : 
" It was the stillest scene ! save now and then 
" A bell just toll'd, and it was still again ; 
" Nor light, nor shadow broke the gen'ral glow, 
" The sun — like God — was viewing all below : 



Canto III. PADILLA. 103 

" The convent mid-way down, the forestry 

" Like amphitheatre exalted high ; 

" The beds of myrtle, with arbutes between 

" In fruits, and flow'rs, and foliage ever-green ; 

u The round white chapels 64 through the shrubs that 

peep, 
" Tipping with silver every airy steep ; 
" The spiry cypress, scattered to and fro, 
u The Muncho's rock, e5 and ocean blue below. 

" Day clos'd, and vespers ; m — scarce the moon- 
" light bay 
" Reveal'd its vessel on her noiseless way ; 
" The fire-flies sparkled through their leafy nave ; 
6i I held the rugged stair-way to the cave. 

" Wide to the silver-sea it lay below, 
" With crystal vault, and crystal portico, — 
" How lonely all ! — when, from the inner gloom, 
u A sigh steals, feebly murmur'd through the dome. 
" There one small lamp, upon the flinty ground, 
" Lent a pale glimmer to the damps around ; 
" A man — though scarce he seem'd a man — within, 
" Kneels by a cross, with book and discipline ; 
" A hairless wolfskin wraps his loins ; his head, 



104 PADILLA. Canto III. 

" And legs beneath, are foul and bleeding red ; 
" He speaks — would rise, — shall rise — but with the 
dead!" , 



THE MUNCHO'S TALE.** 

Stranger — stranger — you cause me fear ! 

Seldom hath mortal ventur'd here. 
Oh a ghost of the tomb I seem to gaze — 

My hour, I know, is near ; — 
Or on a vision of younger days. 

Stranger— that image that you saw 
Shrin'd by the monks in that holy place, 

I ne'er again, for awe, 
May look upon her virgin-face ! — 

But take this book and twine, 
Each thicken'd with my gore, 

Hang them beside her shrine — 
And say they were us'd 'til life was o'er — 

And say what death was mine : — 
That forty years have pass'd away, 

And still this frame receiv'd no care ; 
But from the wild hogs snatch'd their food, 

And drank the brackish spray ; 



Canto III. PADILLA. ]Q5 

Knelt on the rock, till my knees were bare, 
And shoulders clad in blood : — 

My lips have mov'd, but to groan and pray. 

Yet once the Lord of Ennismore, 
Could break a lance by Tara's scarp, 
When — for that silver-oak — I bore, 
Bound in a shamrock's verdant braid, 
The red-branch and the harp ; 
And she, whose scarf I wore, 
Was Erin's brightest maid, 
And soon to be my wife : — 
And, oh ! I lov'd her — though how well 
I dare not think — I may not tell — * 

But far beyond my life ! — 
'Tis wondrous, surely ! stranger, see, 
There's dew upon this clotted brow, 
And still this heart beats high ; — ■ 
Not but remorse may ever be, 
And fitliest I avow, 
With sinner such as I ; — 
Not but the voice of blood, 
That spoke of old, beyond the flood, 
Should always have its cry : 



106 PADILLA. Canto III. 

But sure through each distress, 
Through every scourge, from age and pain, 
'Tis strange that love should thus remain, 

Nor bruis'd and bleeding linger less : 
'Tis strange, that, when the sun 
Has set its last on this grey head, 
And to that judgment-seat, I dread, 

Ere morning I must go, 

One thought of her should wring me so ! — 
But, Christ !— thy will be done ! 

O'Reilly at my banquet set, 
To Mary durst his flame unfold ; — 
What, though the chief was young and bold, 

What, though the kingly-coronet 
Was on his shield of gold ; 

And, though his martial fame was high, 

Nor honour's self more bright than he- - 
His pride was in his eye, — 
He could not love like me. 

But Mary's sire, in haughty mood, 

Preferr'd my rival's hand ; 
I liv'd to hear his insult rude, 

And Mary yield at his command ! 



Canto III. PADILLA. 107 

What could my mind that hour uphold ? — 
What but its purpose dark and bold, 
That made me wildly blest; 

When, at Dunbroady's altar-stone, 
The starting tear, and heaving breast, 
Betray'd her still my own ? — 

The crowd retires — the nuptials o'er — 
When sudden at the chancel-door 
The lights are quench'd — a cry of pain — 

O'Reilly bites the ground ! 

Yet, stranger, deem him not as slain, 

The dagger, though in darkness free, 
Sought less to slay, than wound — 
And, through the tumult soon 'twas found 
The bride had fled to sea. 

Yes, we were on the crystal-tide, 
Yes, I felt a lover's thrill, 

And quick my mantle flung aside; 

When " truly," she replied, 
u That I have lov'd and love thee still, 
" May well remain unsaid : 



108 PADILLA. Canto III. 

6i Or else should Mary's eye 
" Its glances dart on high, 
" And catch at lightning from the sky 
" To strike and blast thee dead : 

" And know, the hand that wields a knife, 
" Even were I not another's wife, 
" That hand and I must part. — 

" O'Reilly ! though in shame to me, 
" Though one less worthy hold this heart, 
" It — husband — bleeds for thee! 

" And thou, bright queen, whose name I bear" 

(And on the cabin-floor her pray r 

Address'd the silver image there) 

" Bright queen of heaven I swear, 
" Nor this, nor mortal-man beside, 
" Whate'er betide, shall soil my pride, 
" But death shall have a virgin-bride." 

Tears, vows, and rage, — they all were vain, 
But brutal force might now remain :-*- 

And now that hour of guilty force was near, 



Canto III. PADILLA* 109 

When ocean's roll 
So grimly came, as well with fear 

Might strike the stoutest soul ; — 
'Twas more than mortal, since I know. 
And, when the waters broke, 
Sent like a cloud of pitchy smoke 
From hell that boil'd below, 
How sank my soul with awe M- 
For, on the forky light, 
^ hat bluely quiver'd through the night, 
My eyes the maid and image saw. — 
And wilder horrors round me wound, 
When staggering down, I truly found, 
Nor maid, nor image there : — 
Then rushing back I felt despair : — 
But, oh ! what sight was then ! — — 



For on yon convent-height 
Was seen that image blazing bright, 
No thousand beacons shed such light ; 
And so the eye might ken, 
Between the billows upward hurl'd, 
Convulsive, like a bursting world, 
A deep and glassy glade ; 



110 PADILLA. Canto III. 

Wherein the ship was steady laid 
As swan that in the smooth lake laves ; 
And still the sailors wept and pray'd — 
Still watery mountains o'er them shone ; 
And still the vessel held her on, 
Like Israel, through the waves. 

Yet then — even then — and ere I'd pray 
I call'd on Mary ; — none beside 
Had seen her on the lightning glide ; 

All deem'd her swept away. 

'Twas o'er — nor did my spirit burst; 
But soon I humbled to the dust, 
And, bless'd be Heaven, that deigns impart 
Repentance to the sinner's heart. 

Stranger ! — the hand of death 
Is closing cold on me ; 

Receive my parting breath 

And in thy " de profundis" be 
The Muncho from Arabida. 



Canto IIL PADILLA. HI 



VI. 



Asia ! what greeting may befit thy name ? 
Cradle of man — his glory, and his shame, 
Redemption, judgment, paradise, and grave ! — 
Land of the wise, the prophet and the slave ! 
Slave of the slaves, who thirteen masters bore ! ea 
Land of a God ! — of crime and idols more ! — 

Nor seem'd a riddle less the motley troop 
Raising the diex-volt for their battle- woop ;#> 
By Antioch late they lay, as all agree, 
And yet may lie — while Daphne's castalie, 70 
Runs cold from strangers lawless as their war 71 — 
For Bonillon's skill, nor wily Adhemar 
Averts pale famine 72 with his woe of woes; 
God metes impartial unto friends as foes, 
And, granting miracles, denies them bread ; 
Nor mailed St. George, who glitters o'er their head ; 
Nor the three martyrs, on their steeds of light 
Prompt at the croises' call, who fly to fight, 
And quell the Great-Turk, want and pest may quell ! — 
'Tis as if Europe upon Asia fell, 
Or one world cross'd another in its sphere ! 



112 PADILLA. Canto III. 

By Syria's shore, — by Gaza now they steer, — 
While sailors tell of Helen's deed of fear, 73 
When the sea-dragon watch'd in Sataly ; — 
Now scarcely deem what saintship it might be 
To tempt thee, Jaffa, on thy glassy sea, 
Though sails— nor oars— nor rudder lent their aid ! 74 

a 'Tis not the crescent — no — by Michael's blade ! 
" Yon castle-banner — mark it floatingly — 
" There, there — it is — it is — see, warrior, see — 
" By all the saints ! it is the cross of red" — 
The pilot shouts, and landward turns their head. 



VII. 

The heart that starting throbs with hope and fear, 
More high and wildly throbs its whole career- 
Like the blue dove, that shoots along the sky, 
And less may dally when her home is nigh :— 
Thus ill Padilla brooks it, though to view 
The sights around her be as strange as new. 

The shores were thronging with a rabble-rout 
To hail the strange knights with their diex-volt 
shout : 






Canto III. PADILLA. 113 

And, 'mid that rout was many a joyous dame, 75 
Though not of such as chivalry may name. 
How poor the Persian turban suits his head, 
Yon northern savage, with his beard of red ! 
How rude the Servian ! — and how fierce the Hun, 
His locks of yellow, with his sheep-skin on ; 
He tells his beads — by Mary he may well — 
Once they were diamonds for a king to tell ! 

Such was their show — half spoil — half nakedness : — 
Nor were their tongues less various than their dress ; 
Various as when, in every gorgeous guise 
The wilderness sends forth its deputies ; — 
Kentucky scarce, for all her vast extent, 
Receives the myriads — nature's parliament. 

Yet might you gather, through that out-cast press 
And phrase uncouth, their tale of wretchedness : — 
What griefs consum'd them by the " Bad-Citye !" 76 
The Danes o'erthrow 77 — the Grecian's perfidy ;— 
What martyr'd heroes went the first to bliss — 
Foulcher-of- Orleans — Gautier-pennyless — 
And all the victims of that fatal fight ! 
In death more happy ; — since their fragments white 78 
Builded a wall, and Nice at length was ours, 
Despite her " iron hands" — her thousand towers — 

i 



j!4 PADILLA. Canto III. 

And that " white lake" the wandering Arab loves, 
When sunset colours all his palmy groves, 
The silent wave — and every pinnacle 
Of the " Gold Palace" where the Genii dwell ! 

How sore they suffered it were long to tell ; — 
What mighty snakes, like fiery Lucifer, 
Curled high and brightly through the sultry air, 
Fast by the flowery fount that armies shun 
As death more cruel than from thirst or sun : — 
Woe, for the serpent of Eleutherie ! 7g — — 
And sight most monstrous unto mortal eye, 
Woe for the Grecian-fires that burn unquench- 
ably! 80 

They told of Raimond's holy butcher-work — 
To flesh his spear, five hundred of the Turk 
Their ears and noses gave ! 81 

O Antioch ! 
What words of theirs might paint thy battle-shock ? — 
Yet Antioch shew'd more paintless and more dread, 
When the young mother on her baby fed^ 
And knighthood's heart a moment seem'd to die ! 8? — 
But eastward flam'd a sabre in the sky, 83 — 
Christ lent his lance, and blessed Adhemar 
From heaven itself brought succour to their war. 



Canto III. PADILLA. 115 

Then, then they came — away the red-cross came 
O'er Judaea, like her sun of flame. 
'Twas east of Emaus they might first behold 
With all her turrets, like a line of gold, 
The sainted city's self! — no transports rude 
Burnt at the sight; but, o'er the multitude 
Came silence hovering, like a cloud o'th'north ; 
While on the sands their tears of joy rain'd forth 
The burning sands, where all their sins were 

shriven ! ^ — 
And longer had they knelt, but one from heaven 
Arm'd at all points, and with his anlance set, 
Light, like a sun-beam, upon Olivet. 

What need they more ? — or who shall strive with 

God ?■— 
Again his throne is in his old abode : 
And well — for Zion's bloody lustral-rite — 
The Great-Turk far'd, as far'd the Amalecite I 35 

VIII. 

Castro ! the brightest name of years long sped ! — 
Hail for thy mighty dead — though all be dead ! 
For him the younger chief, 86 whose high disdain 
Sought a new banner on the bloody plain, 

i 2 



116 PADILLA. Canto HI. 

Aljubarrota; — him of India's weal ; — 
Him of the river ; — him too of the wheel, 
Dubb'd by De Gama, who to Mount-Sinai 
Came from the Red-sea with his chivalry ! 
Nor only heroes from that stock have sprung, 
But one more loved — more lovely— not unsung. 

Fair Iilez ! Fair — alas ! — fair — luckless bride ! 87 
No rest is thine, where all have rest beside. 
Thy relics wrong' d ! — thy sepulchre burst wide ! 
By whom ? — by whom but those it last should be, 
Knighthood's first-born — the pinks of courtesy ? 

She, like a flower 88 — again pluck'd from its bed, 
And by no virgin fingers — hung her head ; 
Pluck'd ere her time she seem'd — and still, 'tis said, 
Look'd with such languour, and an odour shed 
TeAder and fresh, as life that moment fled. 

I saw — I tasted of the fount that bears 
Her loves — her title — not miscall'd " of tears !" 
Weep daughter of Mondego, — nor alone 
Your Inez* wrongs — you now may weep your own ! 

Padilla admiring that of all this crew 

None told of Castro " It is wondrous too : 

c; And once I knew him, when through Old Castille 
" In feats of arms his black-cross lov'd to deal." 



Canto III. PADILLA. 117 

" Hah ! mean you him, the darling of the field, 
" Him of Valencia, with the black-cross shield ? — 
u No tongues but boast of him, — though few, I ween, 
Ci With better right than John-of-Kendal-green \ 
" His coming shines not, 89 but o'erwhelms the fight 
ci Like his own Ebro when it foams through night ; 
" Or, as that mountain it is death to see, 
" Where sorcerers yearly meet in Westphaly : 9° 
" Full hard it went, when with his Spanish pow'r 
6i He join'd our English horse by c David's tow'r.' 
a Faith ! 'tis a heart of fire in danger's hour ; 
" His looks at other times will sadly lower ; 
" And all at court — though wherefore none may ask — 
u Admire he wears no favour in his casque : 
" There, too, King-Godfrey loves to hold him near, 
" As first Lord-Chamberlain and Buffetier." 91 



IX. 



Jerusalem — though why I do not know — 
My ear receives thee like a name of woe : 
As in thy sorrows, when the Prophet's hymn 
Wept thee, Jerusalem ! — Jerusalem ! 92 



118 PADILLA. Canto III. 

Ye groups of palm ! ye verdant fans that play 
By Wadi's hallow'd well, and Ramlas way ! 93 
Rocks ! cedars ! and ye brooks that sparkling run ! 
Ye meads of rose, and wonders of the sun ; 
Whose songs and sweets round Solyma arise, 
Early and pure as Abel's sacrifice ! 
All — all — but chiefly thou, O Calvary \ 
Set like a blaze of diamonds in the sky: 
Thou throne of God ! O pardon, pardon thou — 
Pardon the lonely maid, who pass'd thee now ; 
Nor kiss'd the sacred walls, but hurried by, 
Fear in her heart, and wildness in her eye ! 

" This very hour the king and chieftains here 
tt Hold solemn session in the sepulchre."-— 
Such are the tidings stop her as she hies 
By Omar's mosque. 94 — " Then warrior lead," she cries, 
" Lead me — O lead me by Golgotha's way 
" To join the council — I have much to say !" 



There in the splendour of their high estate, 
A thousand chiefs in Helen's chapel wait : 



Canto HI. PADILLA. 119 

And from the dome a solemn light illumes 
The shining of their steel and wary plumes ! 
But not in silence wait that martial croud ; 
And, the maid entering, thus she hears aloud: — 

" What this to me ?" — she look'd — that youthful air, 
And the brown ringlets on his forehead fair, 
Were well becoming of the " silver-bow ;" 
But he was harness'd as a-battle now ; 
And for love's light his blue eyes flash again 
With fiery wrath and virtue's high disdain : — 
" What this to me ? — nay Peter, Peter, nay 
" The hermit's whimpering tone resume I pray. 
" The kite's a-thirst for blood ? — yet hark thee, kite — 
" I'll shake my lash, 'twill ease thy appetite ! 
u Am I not Tancred ? — Is the hand forgot 
" That cramm'd the oath down, traitor, in thy throat ? 9 " J 
" What ! and forgotten too the part you bore 

" In Antioch's garden with that Grecian w ; 

" When, but for this good two-edg'd blade, the Turk 
" Had come uncall'd and spoil'd your shrieving 

work ? — 
" Who is it, wolf-like and ungorg'd with gore, 
" Whose jaws, yet dripping blood, would howl for 
more ? — 



120 PADILLA. Canto III. 

" Who would have blood ? — enough has run to swill 
" The bloatest gut , — but thou art hungry still — 
" Hungry and lean, I warrant, as a cat 
" Whose stomach yerks, forsooth ! from too much rat '. 

" Thou yellow ruffian, worse than Turk or Jew — 
" So foul, that at the sight a witch might spew — 
" How my heart loathes thee, slave ! — nay, fawn no 

more ; 
" Or, fawning cur, I whip thee from the floor : — 
" Say thou hast dar'd me — and dost live to tell ; — 
a Then urge no more — for, mark me, mark me well, 
" Lift but a finger 'gainst my prisoner, 96 
" One little finger ; and, by Heaven ! I swear 
" This dagger here shall fetch thy filthy soul, 
" Were kings and prelates hugging round thy cowl!" 

That " fawning cur" you might not miss to find, 
Foul in his aspect, fouler in his mind : 
Mark how he cowers ! — can that leaden face 
See no disgrace, but in the rope's disgrace ? — 
And mark his wining smile ! — although a sneer 
Seem most his bearing, not unmanned by fear. 

But, lo ! 'tis silence — save a rustling sound 
As through the twilight all unhelmet round : 



Canto III. PADILLA. 121 

And ne'er was nobler port than his I ween, 
Now vailing lowly to such greeting-scene. 
Of middle years he seems — or else 'tis care 
Has lined that stately brow ; his head is bare — 
For, oh ! he might not bide by mortal borne, 
A golden crown, where Jesus wore his thorn ! 
Mild is his eye — so mild, you'd scarce, I trow, 
Figure its dark-glance in the battle's glow ; 
Or deem — so slightly shews his brawny force — 
What wondrous prowess mark'd his metor-course, 
When all before his blade went withering. 
Needs not to name him ; — who misknows the king ? — 
" And more Sir Vidamme," these hisentrance speak — 
a Well be the Lord of Gallilee awake. 
" And, as he holds our love, aloof from fight 
" Attend our power on Thabor's vantage-height : — 
" High reasons urge us, and that lord should know 
" Who meets Saladin, meets no common foe ! — 
" But how is here ? — have none, princes, addrest 
" The gallant gentleman ? — the stranger-guest ? — 
" That he should longer unsaluted be, 
u Were question truly of our courtesy !" — 
Ye few, ye hapless few, who once have known — 
For such comes deathlike once ? thank Heaven, alone :— 



122 PADILLA. Canto III. 

Ye who have known that moment's agony, 
When love, grief, terror, and expectance high^ 
Stung to their utmost pitch compose despair — 
Image -within — for ye can image there — 
Padilla's thoughts ; but ask not me to shew, 
That they be paintless best yourselves do know. 

E'en from the first, her courage winded high 
Had shewn throughout a fearful constancy ; 
And, even so fragile, through the wild winds ruth 
The lily liv'd — I know not how in sooth ! 
Much had she borne, for all her tender hue, 
And brav'd — although th' interminable blue 
Of water shuddering to look upon — 
Her long, her cheerless way 5 or cheer'd alone 
By love's dim light and once that other light, 
Sweet — though presaging — sweet and mournful quite. 

On she had hurried — for the dizzy brain 
Told her how nature might not long sustain : — 
But, when she enter'd in that chapel proud, 
Proud with its gilded dome and princely crowd 
The struggle nigh was o'er ; — before her sight 
Swims a strange cloud, and yet she sinks not quite ; 
But desperate with life's last energies 
Calls all her sp'rits, and sends them to her eyes, 



Canto III. PADILLA. 123 

For one glance more ; then, as the king draws near, 
And that last glance shews no Alonzo here, 
Further she may not strive ; and, from the day, 
Turning her sickly look — she reels — she faints away. 

" His casque unbar — unbar his haubergeon, 
" Poor youth ! unharden'd to an eastern sun !" — 
They did — and down her mail of silver all 
And pale, pale face the jetty ringlets fall, 
And fall profusely — as to veil them — o'er 
Her ivory neck and breasts that heave no more. 

All gaze in wonder, while a sneer half breaks 
The hermit's shifting smile — but Godfrey speaks : 
u Foul fall the unknightly tongue, the heart of stone 
" Blames thee unheard thou lovely, lovely one ! — 
w Scarce will St. John's good Rector need our prayer 97 
u To lend meet wardship to a charge so fair : 
M And you, Sir Knight, Knight of the Red-branch, you 
" Will place her — deeming it an honour due 
" The flower of a land you love so well — 
" (Ho! guards there!) in the palace of the "Hospital." 

XL 

The streets are still- -the temple's night-watch set, 
Padilla's death-like slumber lasted vet; — 



124 PADILLA. Canto III, 

All hush around the purple Ottomane — 

Her eyes one moment open — close again ! 

Her eye-lids close ; — but not ere she has seen 

Bent o'er her couch a stranger's manly mien ; 

And, by the gold-lamp mark'd — though glancingly — 

His eager looks, and pity of his eye : 

'Tis not Alonzo holds that silent stand, 

And strangely views her locket in his hand. 

I do not say there is a sympathy, 
A secret needle, or some mystic tie, 
That guides the heart, and bids the mother's eye 
Doat on her unknown child — she wists not why ; 
But this is sure, where kindred natures be, 
Slight process needs — they mingle readily. 
Again she sees — she speaks — " His wondrous though — 
" Too wondrous, surely," — yet her doubtings go — 
A word, a look — a word none understand — 
" 'Tis he — His he !" — it was indeed her Ferdinand. 



XII. 

Skim we the story : — in Toledo's fight 
He bore him true — but in no martial plight 



Canto fit* PADILLA. 125 

Albeit, they fairly judg'd him in the grave, 
Robb'd of the token which his parents gave. 

His eyes had look'd their farewell to the west, 
Nurse of the blooming maids and red-branch crest, 
And look'd from Guadarama's rocky hold 
On Tajo's winding wave and endless wold : 
'Twas eve — when orange groves more freshly shew 
In golden fruitage and their balmy blow- 
Conscious of home, to breathe that balmy air 
He laid aside his helmet and his spear ; 
Swift from the ambush'd brake five bravos sped, 
And his own slave he plac'd him at their head — 
" Die, thou must die !" — " 'Tis passing I can die :" — 
But poorly judg'd he that slave's villainy : — 
Naked and bruis'd he bound him to a tree, 
And — " spread the cheer, my friends, 'twill sure be 

good 
" To hear the night-wolves howl, and lap his blood." 

'Twas said — when down the lea the crescent shone, 
And, lo ! the Moslem horse came thundering on : 
He saw the ruffians whiten at the sight, 
Spring from their sordid meal, and mount for flight ; 
But with their mercies, cursing ere they fled, 
They stabb'd his bosom thrice, and deem'd him dead! 



12(] PADILLA, Canto III. 

Young- Ali doated on his prisoner ; 
Nor Nubia less, who fann'd with sister care 
His fever'd lip, nor let his life retire : 
He bless'd her, — who that glance of humid lire 
Could know, nor less the lovely Infidel ? — 
Judge then, if language might his horror tell, 
When from Toledo's flight they took to sea, 
And Afric-winds repelling furiously, 
They struck their crescent to the Christian fleet, 
And both were murder'd — " foully at my feet. 
" Aye murder'd, sister, and they did the deed 
" In Heaven's own name ! — Oh ! cursed be such bloody 

creed!" 
What might he do ? — the ships were Genoese 
Bound for the east, — he with them pass'd the seas, 
And took the cross before beleagur'd Nice. 

XIII. 

" Thy death — oh, Ferdinand ! — what sacrifice 
" Seem'd not thy death ? — but just then came a shade, 
" My mind felt strangely happy, yet afraid: 
" They call'd me sick, and truly it might be, 
u But all my thoughts were, brother^ upon thee !" — 



Canto III. PADILLA. 127 

Their mother's death she wept and told it o'er, 
And how no sickness sooth'd her as before — 
Her wanderings, Moniz' wrath — 'twas he who sped 
The slave and ruffians would have left him dead ; 
And how he own'd it all to break her heart ! 
She chose and trembled while she chose her part ; 
'Til came their mother's spirit to her eye, 
And sweetly smil'd, and beckon'd her on high : 
But griefs were gone — and now, with soul at rest, 
She'd lie for ever on her brother's breast : — 
How she had borne so long, 'twas Heav'n could tell ! — 

With grief and horror fraught what answer fell ?— 
They who had known Alonzo's speaking face, 
Where some fine feeling ever held a trace, 
Had deem'd, perchance, Padilla's brother tame • 
Nor felt he quick — but when he felt was flame : 
It were most idle hop'd I to pourtray 
His bursting pang, now rage and sorrow sway. 

And— " weep not, sister ; do not weep," — he said — 
" Yes, on this bosom lean thy languid head; 
" Call me thy sun-beam peeping from a show'r, 
" To chase, like Hope, the rain-drops from thy flow 'r; 
" Poor thing! — poor injured thing! — these tears 

remove; 
" You loved Alonzo then ? — you still do love ?" 



128 PADILLA Canto III. 

" Brother, some moments' space or hours agone, 
" No griefs unstrung me — I could move alone ; 
" Fearless, alone, though toil and dangers move, 
" And call the world to witness of my love ! 
" But, folding thee, I feel the woman break, — 
" My heart is ever kind — but I am weak : 
u Kiss my pale forehead, bid it think no more — 
" Think thou for me — and, when I wildly pour, 
" Thus pour my soul of fondness at thy feet, 
" And swear I love him — do as is most meet!" 

u Ah ! hope not, sister, — hope not but to find 
a Change in his mien, and even in his mind. 
16 The youthful peace — the calmness of his life 
" Is fled ; t he lives but in the scenes of strife — 
" Else dark and silent : though, uncertain quite, 
" Times are he starts and glares with sudden light, 
" As if impregnate by this fiery clime : — 
" 'Tis Fortune's hand hath done the work of Time. 

" The night-breeze whisper'd — else was heard no 
sound 
" From city, sea, or Antioch's tented ground — 
" When, by my couch, all black from plume to glaive, 
u A knight in mournful mood this letter gave ; 
u Then wav'd his hand, and muttering, as in pain 
" — < Of this no more!' — we never spoke again." 



Canto III. PADILLA. 129 

LETTER. 

The Cyclop's isle is on your lee — 
For not before — for not before, 
My trusty villain swore 

This writing you should see : — 

Read on : — with all his cruelty 

That Cyclop was a saint to me. 

Now. many a night youVe sail'd the brine- 
But two shall not depart, 

Ere he you deem'd so truly thine 
Has struck, like palsy, to the heart 

The man who lov'd him well ! 

A shriek — it soon is hush'd — befel — 

A murderer stains a maiden's charms— 

A snake winds in her ivory arms — 

A worm— a tad-pole of the tomb 

Is feeding on her virgin-bloom I 

Two nights — two nights, and this is done — 
Oh ! when her kiss my kisses meet, 
And breast to breast, and feet to feet — 

When rapture sends her dying tone, 

K 



130 PADILLA; Canto III, 



And all entranced we li( 
Oh ! shall it not be doubly sweet 

To think I hear thy plaintive cry 
Cursing me in thy agony ? 

I would be curs'd ! — nor idly deem 
That blind upon my crimes I go ; 
For, urg'd by bolder oaths, I trow, 
Than many have the soul to know, 
I feel a joy — a lurid gleam — 

That springs, to find my deed of woe 
So dark, so damn'd — it well may seem 

As if the fiend, your priesthood feign, 
Were on his path of night again. 

Yet hold not, Moniz shuns to view, 

Or haply he forgets the due 
Of faith forsworn, and love betray'd ; 

Or thinks to be securely brave : — 

My friend was not that abject slave, 
Would leave a wrong unpaid. — 

Fling woe and woman to the air ; 

And, by the God you paint on high, 



Canto III. PADILLA. 131 

My bosom shall be open-bare, 
Nor stint to take thy dagger there — 
But teach thee how to die. 

Yet would you shun despair and sin 
And rightly deem there is no hell 
Like that we bear within ? — 
Return not to thy native shores, 

Not Castro e'en to ring my knell, 
Or curse the maid your soul adores ; — 
But, brightly brief be honour's thrall, 
Falling — as Moniz cannot fall ! 

" We spoke no more : — and, while the banquet-tone 
On love or friendship dwells, he speaks to none ; 
c Though, when at intervals the veering theme 
6 Be country, honour, worth, or battle-fame, 
6 His mind will flash awhile, as I did say, 
i Quick, wild, and measureless, soaring away 
c Till all admire — admire almost to fear ; 
c As if — and it may be an after-year — 
i On some new Icarus' advent'rous flight 
6 The nations gaz'd with terror and delight. 

K 2 



J 32 PADILLA. Canto III. 

" Yet, in that burst unearthly, when so high 
" His soul is burning in his clear-blue eye, 
" E'en then I've marked him, how a cloud of pain 
" Swept o'er his glowing cheek, and quenched at once 
his strain. 

" Oh ! 'tis a-field he shines — nor only there ; 
" For, when in council others are his care, 
" Full oft hath Godfrey styl'd and meetly styl'd 
" His judgment temper'd, as his courage wild. 

" But I have been where none beside have been — 
" 'Twas when he deem'd his lonely mood unseen, 
" He held and kissed a picture — 'twas of thee, 
" Smiling with truest love, if such there be. 

a That smile would pass — and he would turn be- 
hind 
" Disorderly — and stare upon the wind — 
" 6 Hence, spectre — hence, with all thy painted blooms 
" ' Smile not on me ; — go, smile amid thy tombs ; 
" i Hah ! flowery ruin, must we nightly meet ? 
" i Sapt to the life, I know thee for a cheat — 
" < Hence, hence — I say — thou art not mine, I swear — 
" 4 That blush is false — I know its sickly air ; — 
66 ' Thou art not she I lov'd — thou art not she — 
" ' But this is mine, and shall for ever be.' — 



Canto III. PADILLA, 133 

u And then he'd kiss sgain, so fond and fervently I 
" 'Twas passion's heaving", 'till its tide came on 
" Of frenzy, that I would not think upon : — 
u Oh ! he is changed !" 

" Alas ! we both are so, 
" Brother of mine; — but henceforth joy shall flow: 
" Yes, on this bosom he shall lose his pain, 
" Bless his fond wife, and be himself again. 

" Or if 'tis late — and hearts thus broken all 
" Must fall, we shall at least together fall : 
u Like two young reeds, whose stems the wild-vines 

climb 
" Light on Alhambra in their sunny prime ; 
" And o'er whose gay heads, shaking like a bower, 
" The water lily waves her virgin flower; — 
" They, when the torrent foams along its course, 
" They bend, but still that wild-vine twines them close 
" Or, though they break — and, severed by the spray 5 
u Are pelted wide the tendril links them aye ; 
u Till, on some ebby meeting as before, 
" They closelier cling like us, and are no more." 

XIV. 

But where is Castro now ? — where should he be ? - 
In Tabor's camp with Hugh-of-Tabary. 



134 PADILLA. Canto III. 

And zephyr fluttering on his morning-air 
Delights to lead the maid and brother there. 

Her armed guise is gone ; — but, sylph-like all, 
Adown her courser's side the white-robes fall ; 
And well that dun Alraschid, who did bear 
The Soldan-queen, becomes a fairer fair : 
Conscious of beauty, though of heart so high 
Padilla reins him as she'd rein a fly; — 
He toss'd his silver mane, and passaged light 
Like martial-triumph or some pageant bright. 

For all her cares that lady must not tread 
The queen of cities, quite unaltered : 
There Cedron's flood — the tomb of ifachary — 
In Josaphat are all beneath her eye ; 
And here the " Golden-gate" and Temple shew 98 
The red-cross waving o'er the crescent now. 
And soon they come, where many a lovely land 99 
Breaks with its rills the long expanse of sand ; — 
Not but through all the waste of war is seen, 
Crums 100 ravag'd vines are black by turns and green. 
And palms are branchless e'en to Jordan's shore : 
The " Rose of Jerico" shall bloom no more. 
Thus, thus it is ; — since eldest Cain began, 
Blood follows blood ! — will man be always man ? 



Canto III. PADILLA. 135 

On Gilboa falls no dew ; — but when they look 
Be-northward Esdrelon, to Kison's brook, 
And verdant Carmell — where the sailors tell 
Of Gazelles drinking by « Elijah's well" 101 — 
Much is her brother charm'd to view the streak 
Of fearful joy, that wandered on her cheek. 

And beauteous truly was that fearful gaze — 
So morning trembles through the mountain-haze— 
But spoke no strengthen'd mind ; before the storm 
Can she have stood ? she now is like her form, 
That seems for life too sensitive a flow'r, 
Shrinks from the breeze, and dies before the shower. 

Again she chang'd, and felt her heart beat high, 
Smil'd through her tears, and caught her brother's eye, 
Who shews the mountain, whence they soon shall see 
Dazzling in sun the tents of Tabary, 

And now they upward wind, while nature greets — 
Greets them through all her wilderness of sweets — 
Her oaks, her plane-trees, by the bubbling springs, 
Fruits, myrtles, flowers, and every bird that sings. 

Favor'd of summits ! How from Tabor's height 91 
The varied world is laid before the sight ! 
Look to the west — where ships upon the brine 
At distance blaze, like sun-beams of the line : — 



136 PADILLA. Canto III. 

Then turn your eyes, when rested, to go forth 
In one unbroken journey from the north 
Over the Euxine and the crested snows 
Of Libanon, where most the cedar grows, 102 
Even to Judaea and the asphaltic sea, 
Red Mecca's wave, and blessed Araby ! 

Then turn again ; — upon this mouldering stone, 
Here, it is stated, was Jehovah's throne ! 
And he was glorified, who mildly chid 
His murderers — " they knew not what they did" — 
But we, the insects, shall assume his brand, 
And arrogate a more supreme command ! 

But, lo ! Padilla — ere she gains that height — 
On Jordan's waters, where they wander bright 
Beyond blue Hebron, and the groves beneath, 
Gazes a moment ; — may she gaze 'til death ! 

XV. 

" Lost— by St. Dennis!— Hah! false Tabary!"— 
Thus Ferdinand — and, with disorder'd cry, 
Dashes the golden spurs and slacken'd rein : 
Then heeds his sister, how she shrieks amain, 
And flings the courser on his croup again. 



Canto III. PADILLA. 137 

For, as he tops that mountain-height, are spi'd, 
Adown through Gallilee and Tabor's side, 
The fragments of a battle scatter'd wide, 
And, in the sun, the crescent glitt'ring bright, 
Advances slowly on in pomp of fight ; 
And squadrons, wheeling from the left and right, 
Burst on the broken ranks, that vainly fly — 
And " Mahomet, Mahomet," is the battle-cry; 
And Grecian death-rockets are blazing high, 
Like shells, or lightning, through the troubled sky. 

No Christian line is rallied — all is rout; 
Like the last trumpet is the victor-shout : — 
But through the war a diex-volt murmurs still 
As through the tempest's roar the boatswain shrill ; — 
It is the Oriflamb. On yonder hill 
Five hundred guard it — each a banner'd knight ; 
Nor turns that gallant phalanx unto flight, - 
But fronts, like wounded lion, to the fight, 
Making the mountain-fortress in the rear : 
St. George be with them now ! — O Raimond for thy 
spear ! 

Again a yell, as of the rending sphere !-•• 
Above, emerging from their ambush green, 



138 PADILLA. Canto III. 

And swiftly filing down each flank are seen 
Ten thousand turbans with their dazzling sheen. 

The circle's closing round — what wait ye more ? — 
On, flowers of chivalry — on, onward pour ; 
On, like the Cedron in his winter- roar, 

And gain that mountain-hold ! Alas ! 'tis o'er ; — 

Alas ! the Oriflamb may never fly ! 

Again that phalanx halts devotedly, 
With lances grouping, like the cypress, high ; 
Again their Oriflamb salutes the sky, 
Again is feebly heard the diex-volt cry — 
They may not conquer — but can nobly die. 

Saw you the black-cross? — but Padilla sees, 
Falls on Alraschid's neck ; — swift as the breeze 
Forth with his lovely charge that courser flies ! 
'Tis late : — with five death-wounds Alonzo lowly lies. 
The paynims starting at the vision bright, 
Thus in her white-robe glancing through the fight, 
Arrest their sabres at the blessed sight — 
Deeming her sure some virgin of the light 
For ever by the diamond-table given, 103 
To crown believers with the joys of heaven ! 
'Tis late — a shaft has gone its cruel flight — 
Her heart-blood trickles down her robe of white. 



Canto III. PADILLA. 139 

XVI. 

There is a season sacred unto woe ! 
Yea ! when the moon is in her summer-glow ; 
Far in the silent valley read my theme ; 
Read — as I write it — by the lonely beam. 

The sun hath fled, and with his swiftest flight. 
As he could feel remorseful for the sight 
His ev'ning had illumin'd. — All below 
Serenely lies; — -nor murmurs friend or foe 
Along the silvery field of battle -work. 
There Saladin, and many a bearded Turk, 
Lean on their lances mutely ! — 'Mid his foes, 
As marble motionless, and mute as those, 
Is yonder Ferdinand ? — He doth not lend 
One word of wailing for his sister's end. 

Why gaze they so ? — upon that sand are laid 
A lover dying, and a bleeding maid ! 
Dying ? — alas ! that cheek, that eye of his 
So damp — so glaz'd — even now are spiritless. 
Touch — touch her not ; she ne'er again may rise ; 
Her life-blood runs : — but touch her, and she dies ! 



140 PADILLA. Ca^to III. 

And yet, but for that blood in N which she swims; 
So deep — so crimson — that her iv'ry limbs 
Scarce glimmer though ;— and, but for something, so 
I know not what — beneath her long locks now - 
On elbow rais'd, her look were grief— not pain — 
Watching his trance, who scarce shall live again. 
Thus innocence may die ! — 'Tis death ? — Indeed ? — 

And o'er them kneels — I know him by his weed, 
His shaven crown, the mildness of his eye, 
And by the crucifix he holds on high — 
" Children, depart in peace — your sins are shriven — 
" Your loves were holy — there is rest in heaven-^- 
" Into thy hands, O Lord, their souls be given !" 

So pray'd the friar, to awake the dead ? — 
Yea ! — at the words Alonzo lifts his head ; 
And, though the blood burst freshlier from his side, 
Seems as relief was in that bursting tide : 
He turns — " Hah, thou, my love !" — and, as he turns, 
His cheek is faintly ting'd, his glance too burns ; 
Ay, with such life, so brightly burns, you'd swear 
The very rapture of his soul was there. 

" My own Padilla! — 'Twas a dream I knew 
" Beli'd her so, who e'en to death is true ! 



Canto HI. PADILLA. . 141 

" I see thee, touch thee, — yes— nor question more ; 
" I would not waste this hour — this precious hour. 
u Ah ! dearest, sweetest, so — look so again ! — 
" Nay ! if thou smilest, death shall lose his pain ! 
a Yet life, with thee, were lovely ! — It is o'er ! 
" Hah, bleeding* too ? — well then we part no more. 

" Thou too, my brother, — Ferdinand — draw near: 
(i Much would I say — but must be brief, I fear ! 
" Receive this sacred trust" — and from his vest 
He drew the Oriflamb ; for, wildly prest, 
In death devoted, as in all the past, 
He clasp'd his sword and banner to the last; — 
" Return it home, though broke — unconquer'd ever — 
" And swear that paynim touch shall soil it never ! 
" It turned not, Ferdinand, from battle-fray; 
" And — if 'tis stain'd — it is my life-blood, say. 

u I weaken, — haste, — I soon shall be at ease : — 
" Nay ; brother, kneel — and when this blade he sees, 
" My Cid, my master, only father — now — 
" Tell him of all — I beg his blessing too ! 
" And thou, Collada, take my dying word ; 
6 J I hope I have not wrong'd thee, O my sword ! 

" Forgive me, love — thou aye forgivedst me — 
" Forgive one word, one thought, on aught but thee ! 



142 PADILLA. Canto III. 

" Thou wert not spar'd, I see — yes, wounded sore — 

u But cannot blame, who join us evermore. 

Ci We part no more — with thee, my wife, my wife, 

" All life were dear ; — why not eternal life ? 

" Yet now to die is hard ! — How bright the moon, 

" Bright as in Spain : — we shall not see it soon. 

" Nay, speak not, love — 'twould haste thine end, I 
fear ; — 
u I'd first expire — and thou shalt kiss me here, 
" Till both our souls together go — wilt thou ? 
Ci Nay, holy friar, I'm her husband now !— 
u Call it not death — 'tis rapture we shall sip." 
She answer'd not ; — but sunk upon his lip ! 
Just then her cheek a waving glory took, — 
'Twas but an instant that unearthly look ; 
It was the soul that, flutt'ring, ere it flee, 
Play'd on her features : — further none might see. 
For, as she falls, her long hair loos'ning o'er, 
Closes the scene on both for evermore ! 



XVII. 

So soft the sand, the silence of the night 
Scarce heard his hoof— till, bursting on the sight, 



Canto III. PADILLA. 143 

Springs through the ring that courser with a bound. 
He stops — a muffled knight is on the ground — 
Flings up his vizor — " Moniz' self, I swear" — 
" Aye, slaves, — yet, hold — your work is finished 

here"— 
Then opes his bloody mantle with a sneer, 
And strikes again the mercy that they see 
Plung'd in his side, hilt-deep and greedily. 

Nor was that sneer of his unmix'd with woe; 
For, as he look'd upon the victims low, 
His gaunt frame slightly shook — then stifFen'd there 
No man — no statue — but himself despair. 
How oft will chance in nature's spite misrule, 
Making a villain where it found a fool ! 
Or shift the scene, to mitigate complaint, 
And where it found a villain make a saint ! 
Pois'd on its pivot life an hour is still, 
A word — an atom — turns it good or ill. 
What trifles that thus mock my keenest ken, 
Ye sages say had chang'd the fates of men ? — 
How Caesar had a tyrant-Brutus hurl'd, 
Or Hampden been the Cromwell of the world? 

Moniz from birth was one of common mind, 
With just that virtue unto good inclin'd : 



144 PADILLA. Canto III. 

A mind so feeble, if it held* I shoot 

'Twas friendship ;— but it took no harden'd root : 

And, but for one disastrous passion, still 

That, like the night-shade creeping— creeps to kill; 

He might have livM along the stream of time 

Unnoticed, like the crowd, for worth or crime* 
Needs but a moment to arouse the snake 

In all his terrors from the peaceful brake ; — 

A moment — yes — and Moniz stood prepar'd 

A fiend — Or angel — reckless what he dar'd. 

They ne'er had deem'd, who knew him long and best, 

To find such force — such wildness in his breast: 

And, could he yet survive — who see him then 

Shall scarce believe, what ne'er return again, 

His storm of soul— his page of madness; — tear 

That page of life, and all is feeble there. 

He was a murderer — at least in thought — 
And nature sickens at the crimes he wrought : 
Yes — yes, that moment of devotedness 
Left him no mortal man — but more or less ; 
Nor prone to ill was he — nor heart of steel — 
But one — one wish his fiery soul could feel : 
Men he had seen, and what pursuits they run, 
He deem'd them right — but knew himself but one : — 



Canto III. PADILLA. 145 

For this he'd shun no act — the most sublime, 
Or worst of crimes — yet scarcely hold it crime : 
This was his all ; — let God his lightning throw 
To combat this, and he had brav'd the blow. 

He could have lov'd — at least if it be love, 
Abandonment of self — below — above — 
And when she dies, it is his sole relief 
To shed at once the drops of life and grief- 
He could have lov'd her — and, once wildly prest, 
Close to the burning heart consumes his breast, 
Had he unclasp'd her I — no, not in the abyss 
Of Etna's flame — but felt it cool to his. 
Save her own pang — ten thousand deaths were light ; 
And yet he'd rather kill than lose her quite. 

That — that were hell : — so now on death he went, 
With frame exhausted — but a soul unspent ; 
He goes on death — he fain would hope to rest — 
Then leans one hand upon his bleeding breast ; 
One on his saddle-bow ; — his eye-balls cast, 
Like dying lamps, their brightest and their last. 

" 'Tis done — even more perchance than I had 
done — 
u And now I sing my death-song — not alone. 

L 



146 PADILLA. Canto III. 

u Yet, when assur'd no blood was on my brow, 

" I came with other wherefore say so now ? — 

" Lo ! round my tomb what beauteous ruins reign \ — 
" Nay, Ferdinand, 'tis vain — that look is vain." 

Vain, vain indeed his flash of agony — 
Despair that instant quench'd it in his eye ; — 
'Twas all that one — that hopeless flash ; — his eyes 
Return to earth — who, who shall see them rise I 
Oft wrong'd we hate ; — one wrong; supremely great 
Begets — I know not what of horror — 'tis not hate. 

" Is life a tempest ? — as its bolt was I — 
" Like it I blaz'd, I kill'd — like it I die :— 
u It flew, 'tis nothing, shall be nothing ever. — 
" Hear ye ! — It sings the sleep that wakens never !" 

Nor Turks, nor Christians, but in sooth they hear 
A warbling melody enchants their ear ; 
Strange what it be — so sweet ? — so distant too ? — 
Held it, who knew Padilla's tale of woe, 
The same she play'd, that music of the sky, 
Not unprophetic of her destiny. 
All have their various thoughts; — but, right or 

wrong, 
None dared believe it quite a mortal song. 



Canto III. PADILLA. J47 

" Nature 'tis meet — for I have worshipp'd thee, 
" My first — my last — my only deity ! 
u Thy child — thy lover goes 104 — 'tis meet and well 
" To hymn his last — his brightest festival. 
" Oh ! I am weary ! — Give my soul for ever 
u Death — utter death ; — new worlds — new worship- 
never!" 
No — not for worlds— I would not longer dwell 
On the dark parting of that spirit fell ! 
But he is gone — and silence reigns again— 
A moon-light silence on the warrior-men : 
And still the lovers lie — and still that pall 
Of long, black ringlets veils their face from all. 

XVIII. 

The gentlest travellers ! — and are they gone ? 
If so, the moment was reveaFd to none : 
But, like that melody was warbling by, 
Divinely sweet, and surely from on high, 
It play'd— you scarce might hear its softest swell^— 
And, when it ceas'd, you seem'd to hear it still : — 
Even so they must have gone — for not a breath 
Told of their journey— though from life to death. 

l2 



148 PADILLA Canto III. 

But day is in the east — yet cold each hour 
They grew — nor rose like every other flower. 
u Christians 'tis past — they know no mortal care !" 
The friar said and rose — 

Peace to the lovely pair ! 



NOTES 



NOTES TO CANTO I 



i. 

Nor deem, fair traveler, that I feel the less. 

Par. i. line 2. 

At least the two first cantos are supposed to be related in a jour 
aey from Scotland. Hence the breaches in the narrative. 



None, save the foremost fower, entitled high 
Of both the Gallilees and Tabary, 

Par. ii. line 14. 

Hugh " Chatelain de St. Omer n was one of the barons who 
accompanied Godfrey of Bouillon to Jerusalem, where his services 
were repaid by the lordships of Tabaria, and of the Gallilees.* 
Not long after the conquest of the ' holy city,' Hugh was van- 
quished by Saladin, and made prisoner. I am aware, that it may 
be urged, that this event took place after Godfrey's death ; and, 
although such a chronology be perhaps disputable, I will not con- 
test the point, but acknowledge the probability of a slight ana- 
chronism. 



* Gallilee is divided into Upper and Lower Gallilee. JJpper 
Gallilee bordereth upon Tyrus, otherwise called Galilea Gentium, 
or heathenish Gallilee. Lower Gallilee lieth near imto the lake of 
Tiberias, and to Nazareth." (Mem. Remarks on the Jews. p. 51.) 



152 NOTES. 

The whole is related in one of the most ancient morsels of " Ro- 
mane " poetry extant : — 

" 'Tis well to hear a wise man speak,— 
His lips disclose what all should seek, 
Wisdom, worth, and courtesy: 
'Tis well to bear him company. 

" By prudent men, says Solomon, 
Their deeds are always purely done ; 
Or if they sometimes wander wide — 
Their doctrine by their deeds belied, — 
Since less through choice than chance it be, 
Light is the sin— the pardon free." 

After this preface our fabler begins his tale : — 

" Of a prince of paynim land, 
A firm and loyal * Sarrazin' — 
His vassals name him Saladin." 

To stop the triumphs of this paynim, Hugh of Tabary advances 
with a numerous body of knights. After an obstinate encounter, 
however, (for " Well they fought on battle day,") the Christians 
were completely overthrown, and Hugh himself made captive. 

— '* Through the streets they led him in, 
And took him straight to Saladin; 
He at once saluting Hugh, 
for all ' his latin' well he knew — 
' Sir Hugh, (by Mahomet I swear) 
Right glad I am to see you there.' " 

And so he informs our " flower of chivalry," that he may choose 
between death and ransom. The latter being preferred, Saladin 



NOTES. 153 

rates the sum at 100,000 besants. So much money the other utterly 
denies his capability of raising- ; but the objection is overruled, by 
the Saracen's conviction, " that not a prince of Christendom, but 
would gladly join in making up the ransom of so renowned a 
knight." 

" Then Hugh replies, ' And even so; 
Yet how depart me hence I'd know? 
Behold me here in bondage vile.' 
The soldan answer'd with a smile — 

* Your honour, Priuce of Tabary, 
Your word and faith be pledg'd to me, 
That ere two years your ransom's here, 
Or you return a prisoner: 

But this, and you may hence depart!'" 

The generous proffer is accepted, and, with an obeisance, Hugh 
turns to go : — 

" But to his chamber Saladin, 
And by the hand hath led him in ; 
And there hath spoke him fair and free, 
With winning words and courtesy, — 
' I urge thee, Hugh, both by thy law, 
And by the God you serve with awe ; 
I urge thee, tell me how and why 
Are dubb'd your knights of chivalry V 
' I may not, sire ! 'twere shame and sin :* 

* And wherefore so V cries Saladin. 
c Noble sire, it may not be ; 

A holy order's chivalry, 

Nor suits unchristian soul like thee. 



154 NOTES. 

What vests may veil a carrion side 1 
The richest only shew more wide 
The foulness they were meant to hide : 
'Twere deed as ill, and idle too, 
To dub a paynim prince like you ; 
High blame such office would befal, 
And sinful it were dcem'd by all.' " 

" No such matter," returns the Soldan : " no one can condemn 
you ; you are ray prisoner, are you not ? — ' I'm free to force th<e 
grace I sue.' " Upon this Hugh of Tabary yields, and 

straightway gives 



Command for meet preparatives. 

Saladin, " having his hair and beard decorated, 

" Caviaus et barbe et le viaire 
Li fist apparillier moult Del," — 

is led in procession to the bath. In entering he interrogates his 
illustrious guest : — 

" ' What means this form to signify V 

Hugh replies, of Tabary, — 

' In sin are born all infant race, 

Till holy font their guilt efface ; 

E'en so this bath should leave you free 

From ev'ry stain and villainy, 

To rise, all pure and spotless white, 

An open, brave, and courteous knight !' 

* Now, by the God V cries Saladin, 

* Noble beginning 'tis and fine.' \ 



NOTES. 155 

On leaving the bath, he is plaeed, reclining, on a couch of 
state : — 

" t What means this form to signify V 
Hugh replies, of Tabary: 

' The couch of rest— th' eternal bed, 
For friends of heav'n, and saints on high ; 
The last, bright boon of chivalry.' "■ 

He is next arrayed in " a robe of linen, white and thin,-' to 
figure the gentleness of a true knight ; and, in a scarlet mantle, to 
represent his valour and his constancy. " The brown sayes," and 
black sandals he puts on, are intended to remind him of his last, 
end — thereby humiliating his pride, and leaving him " tender, 
mild, and true." The chain " blanche et petite de feture," with 
which he is girded, 

" Bespeaks the spotless soul and bright, 
Heart and soul unblemish'd quite." 

The gilded spurs being buckled on his heel, with an exhort- 
ation to be 

" Good of heart, and prompt at need," 
a a two-edged sword " is next given him ; 

" In danger's hour his sure ally. 

* What means this form to signify V 

Hugh replies, of Tabary: 

*This two-edg'd faulchion serves to shew 

The double debt of arms you owe ; 

The proud to low'r, and raise the low ; 

Of wealth to quell the insolence, 

And guard the poor from power's offence : 

Be just, sir knight, and loyal, aye!'" 



156 NOTES. 

The " coif of virgin white," signifying how stainless from re- 
proach the candidate should be, is placed upon the Soldan's head, 
who asks whether all the ceremonies be gone through? " Yes, 
sire!" answered Hugh ofTabary; "all, excepting the stroke — 
1 chest li colee ' — which bids ' remember him who dubb'd thee 
knight.' " And this he is fearful of attempting :— " 111 might it 
seem, and high offence." For " stroke," or " accolade," then are 
substituted four important counsels, recomending the Saracen 
" never to give way to falsehood ; but, on the contrary, to hate 
liars, and fly the very air they breathe : to hear mass every morn- 
ing, and 

" Give the altar what gifts he may — 
For well they merit, and fully repay : 

to fast strictly every Friday, 

<c In sign of our Saviour's suffering day : 

and, in fine, to succour the widow and the orphan — to rescue vio- 
lated beauty, and be always encountering danger in her service: 

" O Soldan ! above all, I charge thee, 
Weening you deem the precept bright, 
O guard the maid and lady's right ! 
Spear and shield, ready to wield, 
Ne'er in defence of the fair to yield." 

In the enthusiasm of his new chivalry, Saladin bestows upon his 
guest any ten of the imprisoned knights he may select. Upon this 
Hugh, whose eye always turns towards the besants — " Sire !" said 
he, " it was but just now you asserted, that all knights would be 
desirous to contribute to my ransom. I begin by an application to 
the knight I most esteem ; and it is you I request to enable me to 
pay my debts to the great Saladin." He was not disappointed : 
the princely Soldan paid him the hundred thousand besants, which 



NOTES. 157 

he moreover refused to reaccept ; and Hugh of Tabary, with his 
ten knights, not only unransomed, but enriched, was sent back 
to the Christian army under a magnificent escort.* 

The Saladin here is the renowned Salehaddin, so frequently men- 
tioned in the crusades ; and the involuntary testimony thus borne 
to his worth, in spite of the bitter prejudices of religion and the 
times, is surely no mean one. 

The reader is not to start at the idea of a Mahometan sovereign 
being a Christian knight : Facardin Emir of Egypt was dubbed by 
the Emperor Frederick himself; and we sometimes hear of Sol- 
dans, ivho had cardinals to say mass for them* 

3. 
What time at Burgos, &c. 

Par. iii. line 9. 

It was in the summer of 1067 that St. Isidro appeared unto 
King Don Fernando, " Peer of the Emperor." The reign of that 
monarch had been glorious, and his Moorish conquests had built 
him up a mighty dominion : at his hand the Cid was armed, and 
St. James fought frequently by his side. Of this latter fact there 
is abundant proof in the testimony of a Greek bishop. 

This person had come into Galicia, " for salvation of his soul," 
on a pilgrimage to the relics of the holy apostle ; where, among 
other miracles, being told of his appearing armed with the Christ- 
ians in battle, he smiled ; sarcastically remarking, " how ill this 
new profession of chivalry agreed with his ancient trade of fish- 
ing !" But shortly afterwards, the saint appeared to him in his 
sleep, all in splendid armour, and with keys in his hand, saying: 
— " No longer doubt of my being truly a knight ; and behold I am 
now going, with these keys you see, to open Coimbra to my bro- 
ther in arms, the King D. Fernando, who has besieged it for the 

* JiOs Grands Fabliaux (Batbazan's Collection.) 



158 NOTES. 

last seven months." With this, St. James, mounted on a white 
horse, richly caparisoned, and departed — to fulfil, as you may 
readily conceive, his mission. 

Bending with honour and years, the " Peer of the Emperor 1f 
could receive from heaven, this side of the grave, but one favour 
more. St. Isidro was its bearer, by revealing to him the hour of 
his death, which was to be in December following, on the day of 
St. John the Evangelist. And so, indeed, he died ; and his re- 
mains are deposited in the church of St. Isidro of Leon. 

But, previous to his departure, the monarch had arranged his 
will ; and, though he could not write, it bore his royal mark of 
four Z's. He therein divides his states between his children, pro- 
nouncing a woeful curse on whomsoever of them shall disturb the 
others — " Sit maledictus a Deo vivo et a Sanctis suis." In conse- 
quence of this will, Sancho, the eldest son, ascended the throne 
of Castille — Alfonso that of Leon — Garcias that of Portugal and 
Galicia, and Donna Urraca became Queen of the city of Zamora. 

What will not ambition? Scarce had a few days elapsed, and 
Don Sancho began to cast about how he might dispossess his bro- 
thers. Whether his courtiers, resembling other courtiers, were" 
flatterers of his passions, is not come down to us ; but time has 
embalmed the generosity of the Cid, who dissuaded his sovereign 
from his will, and bade him call to mind the curses of his father. 
The advice was vain ; and a large force, sent against Don Gar- 
cius, was defeated by the Portuguese, under command of the re- 
nowned D. Rodrigo Frojas. 

This gentleman had in the hours of prosperity been neglected : 
hence he had retired from Portugal, with a small company of 
friends, proud to share his exile. But danger restores the brave 
man to his rights ; and D. Rodrigo was actually upon the thresh- 
hold of France, when the messengers of his monarch overtook 
him. One who had forsaken his country with sorrow, a word was 
sufficient to recal : he flew to Coimbra, kissed the hand of his 
prince, placed himself at the head of the few troops — and the en- 
emy fled. 



NOTES. 159 

Irritated at his discomfiture, D. Sancho raised a prodigious 
army, marching with it himself in the security of success. His 
brother had retired to Santarem ; where his forces were so inade- 
quate in number, that most people dissuaded him from hazarding 
a battle ; but D. Rodrigo, with many politic reasons, coinbated 
their advice ; and it was at length determined to rely on the just- 
ice of their cause, and the valour and fidelity of the Portuguese 
fidalgos. By this resolution the king's spirit was raised up ; and 
he became further animated, upon D. Rodrigo demanding the van 
for himself, his two brothers, and his cousin. 

They waited for the enemy, whose innumerable pennons were 
soon descried advancing ; and. the lines of battle met in a plain, 
where the vineyards of the city now grow. In a few moments the 
engagement became general ; but the bloodiest struggle was be- 
tween the squadrons in the centre. 

There might 3011 have seen the banner of Castile in the thickest 
of the fight ; and D. Rodrigo, with his Portuguese, pushing on to 
gain, and the Castilians to defend it — the former incited by me- 
mory of their " ancient glories," and these by the presence of their 
monarch, D. Sancho, who was animating his people not only with 
his loud shouts, but many good deeds of arms wrought that day. 
It was then the Portuguese had given way to numbers, but for 
having God upon their side, and the good Don Rodrigo Frojas ; 
who, driving through all, struck down the hostile banner, and 
(while Gomez de Sousa was preparing to make onward with his 
lance) spurred past, and seized the king by the wrists. 

The fight was over — but D. Rodrigo was faint ; what with fresh 
wounds, and the bursting of his old ones, was waxing mortally 
faint, and eagerly inquired for his sovereign lord, Don Garcias. 

Don Garcias was in the right wing, but, upon these tidings, put 
to gallop. Hall-way he was met by the Count D. Pedro, who 
said to him, u Most honorable sire, is the present my brother has 
to make you ; but to gain it, you lose him." Tears fell from the 
eyes of the king, who replied, in a voice broke with sobbing, " It 
is possible that D. Rodrigo may lose his life to serve me, but the 



160 NOTES. 

fame and opinion he lias gained for his descendants, cannot be* 
robbed by death." 

Upon his coming up to where D. Rodrigo lay, that noble cap- 
tain, raising himself as he might, presented to him the king, D. 
Sancho his brother ; and, having thrice required the royal acknow- 
ledgment in receipt, he rallied all his strength. ** For me, sire," 
said he, " sufficient is the content of seeing you with victory. For 
it your thanks are due to these good Portuguese fidalgos, who 
offered themselves to death with such devotion, to preserve you 
from an affront. In all your difficulties, sire, be led by their advice, 
and you cannot err : for they, as well as their ancestors, have so 
loved the truth, that not one of them has considered of his life when 
honour was in question." With these words he fainted back upon 
his shield, where, having his saddle for pillow, and kissing the cross 
upon his sword-hilt, he expired, one of the most valorous knights 
this world ever has produced. 

Awhile the routed enemy was followed, and the king was return- 
ing from the pursuits, less in joy for having his brother in his pow- 
er, than lamenting the loss of his celebrated vassal. A cruel mis- 
fortune awaited him. Through the negligence of his guard, D. 
Saneho had escaped, and was now with some broken troops on top 
of a hill ; whence, espying a body of cavalry in the distance, he 
thought he perceived the banner of the Cid, Ruy Dias. So turning 
to his own he cried, " Rejoice, rejoice with me ; now I see I am 
reinstated in my crown : for, lo ! yonder cometh the banner of the 
valiant Cid, my vassal, and T know that the good D. Rodrigo Fro- 
jasis dead ; so that my brother hath no resource." 

It was truly D. Rodrigo Ruy Dias de Bivaz, the blessed Cid. 
D. Rodrigo de Frojas and he had been brethren in arms, and, by 
the Moors, their names were never separated ; till at last old 
king D. Fernando, in the pride of his head, had exclaimed, " other 
monarchs may have wider territories, but it is only for me to have 
at once two such as the Rodericks — him of Portugal, and the Cas- 
tillian." Both of them had sought to prevent this civil strife, that in 
the end obliged them to pronounce farewel ; for the duties of loyalty 



NOTES. 161 

were paramount to the ties of friendship. So the Cid was now 
marching 1 , as he thought, against the man lie long and dearly loved, 
and by whose side he had fought in so many hard won battles. 

The matter was soon decided, and D. Garcias, in his turn, made 
prisoner ; but not before the flower of his nobility had been slain, 
and in particular the two brothers and two nephews of D. Rodrigo 
Frojas : so that, in one day, perished the five heads of the house 
of " Pereira in defending their monarch," says de Brito, " and 
sustaining the crown of this kingdom." 

For ten years was the unfortunate D. Garcias a captive in the 
fortress of Luna. During all that time the light of heaven never 
visited his eyes ; nor were his limbs once relieved from their fet- 
ters. At his dying hour he requested they might not be removed, 
but that his corpse, in chains as it was, should be laid down by his 
father's side. This last desire w r as fulfilled, and he was interred in 
the church of St. Isidro, where a skeleton is still shewn conjectured 
to be his. 

Conqueror of Portugal and Galicia, the King D. Saiicho marched 
against Leon ; and, after no longer warfare, D. Alfonso was in his 
hands. D. Alfonso was not devoid of shrewdness ; and, throwing 
himself upon the protection of the church, demanded to take habit 
in the monastery of Sahagun. It was but a feint, and he quickly 
found method of escaping to Toledo. The munificent Alimamon 
received him royally, giving him palaces to live in, and an income 
that became a monarch. 

Not many years went ere Sancho turned his arms against his 
sister, and began to besiege Zamora. It was his exit scene. One 
day, as he rode about reconnoitring the walls, a horseman, coming 
suddenly with his lance, killed him on the spot. The Cid, who was 
a short distance off, made after the assassin ; but he escaped, in 
consequence of the Cid being without his spurs. " And hence," 
says the Monarquia Lusitana, " the anathema against such as take 
horse without their spurs." But the murder was not unavenged ; 
and the Zamorians having given up the guilty wretch, he was torn 
asunder by four wild mares. Moreover, the city having cleared 

M 



162 NOTES 

itself by a combat, in which Rodrigo Arias, after the fall of his three 
brothers, was victor, was solemnly pronounced, " stainless and 
true." 

Immediately upon King; D. Sancho's death, Donna Urraca had 
sent to advertise her brother in Toledo. She dreaded the Moor, 
who thus unexpectedly came to have the monarch of his mortal 
enemies in his power. Alimamon was the first to congratulate ^his 
guest, appointing him a splendid escort, and promising him a peace 
— a promise he did not break — and shedding tears of friendship on 
his departure. 

But there ever remained something mysterious in the assassina- 
tion of the late king, and D. Alfonso was not held clear of all sus- 
picion. Hence the nobles of Castile had come to a resolution, of 
not permitting his assuming the throne, until he should have de- 
nied, upon oath, that he had meddled with his brother's death* 

When, however, he entered into Burgos, (not a wretched exile, 
as they expected, but with that Moorish magnificence so new to 
them,) those nobles swerved from their compact, and offered unre- 
stricted homage. All, save the Cid, who, true to the memory of 
his master and to his country, braved the *nonarch's wrath, tender- 
ing him the oath thrice upon the alter of St Agieda. And thrice 
Alfonso took it ; upon which the Cid owned himself his vassal, and 
kissed hands. 

Still their perfect reconcilement was not immediate, and the Cid 
retired from a court where he was looked on coolly. Many of 
his friends accompanied him ; so that, advancing to the confines of 
Valencia, he soon took Teruel, with its " Alcazar," or castle, from 
the Moors. There he lived for some years : there, too, he was 
visited by the worthiest " Hidalgos" of Castile, and was considered 
the father, as well as flower, of Spanish chivalry. King Alfonso, 
moreover, forgot his piques, and became tenderly attached to the 
man whom he rightly judged the best guardian of his throne. 

The last years of the Cid were spent in affluence and power ; for 
rescuing Valencia from the Moors, he reigned in that city till hi? 
death, 



notes; 163 

Hence Alonzo de Castro was born at Teruel, and had the Cid, 
his father's friend and master, for sponsor at " Holy Font." By 
the best chronologists the King D. Alfonso's death was in 1072 ; 
the Cid's retreat from court was shortly after : so that our hero was 
born probably about 1077. 

4. 
The sponsor's black-shield, gauntlets, helm, and spear, 
Scarce, in their vests of blue, three pages bear. 

Par. iii. line 37. 

These arms of the knight, either upon march, or on entering into 
a church, were borne by the pages or the squire ; who, moreover, 
on a march, led their master's battle horse, while he bestrode him 
upon a red palfrey. 

" They perceived Sir Hugh de Chalillon," says Froissart, " rid- 
ing down the road, which leads to Rouvray, with only twelve others 
armed at all points, except his helmet, which one of his pages bore 
on a courser.' 7 (v. 4. p. 36.) 

" Then came my Lord of Gauvain," as Perceforest has it, " and 
two pages. One led his war-horse on the right hand, the other 
bore his shield and helmet." 

To relieve the head from its frightful burden was surely a suf- 
ficient reason for uncovering ; but this was also done through re- 
spect. " The knight of death," Palmerin of England, " having 
every thing in readiness, with his two esquires attending on him, 
he entered the emperor's palace, attired in his accustomed armour, 
having only his head and hands unarmed." And in the tale of 
the " Beranger," his lady, disguised in armour, makes the poltroon 
take off his helmet to perform a very humiliating ceremony.* 

* Perhaps it is well to make a remark here, totally unnecessary 
to the antiquarian, or general historian. You are not to suppose 
the authorities merely fanciful, that are drawn from songs, fables, 
romances. These are, in fact, the better histories of the middle 

m2 



164 NOTES. 

5. 

1 know him by 

The szvord Colada ■ 

Par. iii. line 39. 

The sword was sometimes as famous as the most celebrated war- 
rior who wielded one. Our owe King Arthur's sword, " Cali- 
bume," was among the most vaunted. Ring- Richard, who had 
borne it to the " Crusades," presented it as a gift, or relic, of ines- 
timable value to Tancred, King of Sicily, in the year 1191. Robert 
ofBrune calls this sword a jewel: — 

" And Richard at that time got him a fair juelle, 
The good sword, Caliburne, that Arthur lov'd so well." 

(H. E. P. v. i. p. 121.) 

age. The chronicler conjures up his saint ; the romancer his 
dwarf and giant: but the fabulous incident of the latter is clothed 
in all the dress and circumstances of real life. The drowsy enu- 
meration of ill-caiculated dates, and of imbecile miracles, and the 
geography, of which one can make nothing, fatigue the reader ; but 
the soberest judgment is delighted with the old romances, because 
every page teems with useful information. Why is Froissart the 
only interesting chronicler ? because he is the only one whose story 
is in the garb belonging to it ; he paints his heroes as they actually 
were, and employs the language of his day : and by this fidelity he 
has written a romance. Let the romancer's main action be passed 
over, and then you may implicitly rely on his description of cus- 
toms, maimers, and opinions. But are not these the soul of his- 
tory ? A dry detail of facts may be true, or may not be true ; but 
let us know how men were brought up and lived— how they talked, 
eat, dressed, travelled, thought, prayed — and we may confidently 
decide as to their conduct upon any given occasion. Here the ro- 
mancer stands unrivalled : he presents us with a truer and more 
minute portrait of his times than all the historians of all other ages 
and countries put together. 



NOTES. 165 

6. 

Now seven sweet springs are gone, and he must go^ 
Go from the female hand that lov'd him so. 

Par. iv. line 19. 

At seven years of age the candidate for chivalry was usually 
taken from the hands of the women, and passing the fourteen en- 
suing years, as damoiseau, varlet, or page and squire, he was 
knighted at twenty-one. 

To this law, however, were innumerable exceptions : the kings 
of France were knights from the cradle — our King Edward knight- 
ed the Prince of Wales at fourteen years and a month old, writes 
Rapin — the King D. Alfonso Henriquez at fourteen years of age 
conferred that honour on himself, " ut mos est Regum," says the 
History of the Goths. " Induit se lorica ut Gigas, qui magnus 
erat corpore, similis factus est leoni in facinoribus suis et sicut ca- 
tulus leonis rugiens in venatione. Fuit pulcher aspectu, vultu de- 
siderabilis, clarus ingenio, corpore decorns, animo intrepido, &c."* 

The fourteen years of education were spent in every exercise 
that could improve the mind, or render the frame hardy. " Some- 
times," the young boucicaut, " he tried to leap upon a horse, 
armed as he was cap-a-pe ; he would rim sometimes as far and as 
fast as he was able, to gain long wind, and to learn to endure much 
fatigue. Then would he wield the axe about him and about him, 
and whirl the ball with the mallet. At other times he jumped with 
all his armour, or danced in a coat of mail. He would vault upon a 
courser armed at all points — he would vault behind a warrior on his 
war-horse, and stand there steadily — he would place one hand upon 
saddle-bow of a battle-steed, and with the other hand in his mane 
vault over him as he went at speed over the open plains ; and when 
at home he would be ever throwing the javelin, and attempting 
other curious deeds of arms." 

So high was to be the respect of the candidates for the sacred in 
,«» ,i. . .. . — , _ , L , in --- 

* Chronica Gothorum, „Era 1163. 



166 notes; 

stitution to which they aspired , and so' solemnly was it impressed 
upon them, that no wonder if, as they arose, it grew to an enthu- 
siasm, of which all the luxuriance of romance can give but a feeble 
idea. Kings were proud to attach their children to their brave vas- 
sals ; and sons of kings performed every menial service — assisting 
the knights when they either armed for the field or dressed for the 
banquet. They were even to attend at the table, and carving well 
was esteemed a very chivalrous accomplishment. 

" Tout chevalier," it is a quotation from LOrdre de Chevalrie, 
" doit son fils mettre en service d'autre chevalier, afin qu'il ap- 
prenne a tailler a table et a servir et a armer, et a habilier chevalier 
en sa jeunesse. Ainsi convient il que tout noble homme qui aime 
I/Ordre de Chevalrie et veut devenir et etre bon chevalier, et pre- 
mierement maistre que soit chevalier." 

" So the Count de Foix," says Froissart, " seated himself at 
table in the hall, and Garston his son served him with all his 
meats : and in the Geste of King Home, (the most ancient, accord- 
to Mr. Wharton, of our English metrical romances,) amongst the 
accomplishments in which that royal youth is to be instructed, 
Aylmer especially noteth, 

u Byfore me to Kerven and of my course to Serven." 

During the latter years of their probation, the young persons 
were usually called squires, (for I do not find, that in the very an- 
cient chivalry the distinction between page and squire was much 
defined,) and they began to take an active part in real war. " Dur- 
ing the skirmish at Toury," relates Froissart, " a squire from 
Beauce, a gentleman of tried courage, came to the barriers and 
cried out to the English ; " Is there among you any gentleman, 
who, for love of his lady, is willing to try with me some feat of 
arms? If there should be any such, here I am, quite ready to sally 
forth, completely armed and mounted, to tilt three courses with the 
lance,* to give three blows with the battle-axe, and three strokes 

* By-the-way this passage seems to argue a mistake, in Mon- 



NOTES. 167 

with the dagger. Now look you English, if there be none among 
you in love. 

Neither in tilt or battle should the page or esquire have presumed 
to measure his arm with one really professed in chivalry :* pages 
encountered pages only, squires only squires. 

In the reign of our Edward III., however, a celebrated duel en- 
sued between one Sir John Annesley, Kt. and a Thomas Kattring- 
ton, Esq. It was a trial upon a charge of treason, in which the 
knight was the accuser. The combat took place in presence of the 
court : the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, presided, and the 
concourse of people flocking to London, as spectators, was thought 
to exceed that of the king's coronation. After a long contest the 
esquire was vanquished ; he fainted with fatigue, and died next 
day. They fought on foot, " first with spears, after with swords, 
and lastly with daggers." (Dall. heraldic inq. p. 113. — An. reg.) 

But such instances were most rare, and since they implied much 
condescension in the knight, he must have always been the chal- 
lenger. They fought " on foot ;" that is, as if both were simple 
esquires. And as a proof of the strictness of this etiquette, it is 
recorded, that, so far from Kattrington's being permitted to enter 
the lists on horseback, like a knight, " he was careful to alyght 



sieur de St. Pelaie's imagining, that the squires, on no occasion 
bore other accoutrements than the sword, the cuirass, and the 
shield. In a very ancient work, cited by Du Cange, and by Mr. 
Grose, the armour of a squire is thus described : — " Item, the har- 
ness of an esquire shall be similar to that of a knight, except that 
he shall not have the hose of mail, nor coif of mail over his pacinet ; 
nor ought he to have sleeves of mail: in all other points he may 
arm like a knight." (Milit. Antiq.) 

* Brantome tells us, that the kings of France in battle were al- 
ways guarded by a body of the bravest squires, who never struck 
at the hostile knights, not even in the hottest conflict, " but only 
warded off their blows, nor employed themselves in aught else." 



168 NOTES. 

r o m his horse, lest, according' to the law of armes, the constable 
should have challenged him." And, in fact, he was so claimed ; 
for the horse " patting his head over the rayles," the Earl of 
Buckingham, " because he was high-constable of England," de- 
manded him as forfeited, " swearing that he would have so much 
of him as appeared over the rayles ; and so the horse was after- 
wards adjudged to him." 

7. 
Of various party they, as striplings use, 
Each chose his company, or fain would choose. 

Par. iv. line 38. 

In the castle of each more celebrated warrior, a number of dis- 
tinguished youths were brought up together. Nor was this only 
for the emulation it excited ; but also because it gave birth to those 
friendships, so famous under the title of " brotherhood in arms." 
You might be supposed, in some reality, acquainted with the man, 
who, during fourteen boyish years, was never from your side : it 
was the best guarantee of an attachment too solemn, and embrac- 
ing too many duties, to be slightly pledged. " Beax fils," says the 
Castoiement d'un pere a son fils, a relic of the thirteenth century : — 

" Beax fils ne loe ton ami 
Ains que tu saches bien de si ; 
S'il t'aime bien veraiement 
Tu sauras a l'esprovement.'' 

" But he who has found a proved and loyal friendship should 
cherish it, my son, as invaluable, and thank very much the mother 
of God." 

" Molt le devoir Ten bien garder 
Et dame Diex molt remercier." 



NOTES, 16& 

8. 
Since him, the Lusian Reguhs, whose grave 
Is east of Guimaraens, by Sousa's zvave. 

Par. iv. line 46. 

The last resting-place of a hero is sacred. Under such a feeling 
I made a kind of pilgrimage to the tomb of Egas Moniz. It is in 
the monastery of Paco de Sousa, about seven leagues from the city 
of Oporto. I say pilgrimage ; for it requited some religion to lead 
one on through the frightful weather I encountered.* The monks 
received me hospitably, but their ignorance is woeful — their igno- 
rance of even what a friar is usually acquainted with," the cariorio, 
or archives of his convent. A distinguished friend of mine had 
been there before, who, in his fondness of curious research, had en- 
deavoured to see Moniz's last will ; but he had been disappointed. 
After some labour I was more fortunate. It is an interesting do- 
cument, but chiefly interests by authenticating the following bit of 
history. 

Egas Moniz, a rich man of banner and caldron, (that is, a count, 
or baron of the pure Gothic stock,) was one of the most renowned 

* It was in winter, and the mountains are infested with wolves. 
On my arrival at the convent, I was assured by one of the monks, 
that the night before, (while returning from Lamego fair with a 
large company of peasants and their dogs,) he had met eleven of 
them in a pack. I only saw one. I was without a guide, alone ; 
it was raining and nearly dark ; my pistols too were unprimed. 
This, perhaps, was fortunate ; since, if I had tired at the animal 
and missed him, he would have attacked me. As it was, he was 
content with running along-side my poney for about a quarter of a 
mile in his loose jumping gait, and with now and then shewing his 
teeth like a half-enraged dog ; and at last he turned off slowly into 
the bush-wood. Wolves are far more destructive throughout Por- 
tugal and Spain than they were before the war, owing to their be- 
jng unhunted, and to their being driven into the plains and inhabited 
country by the Guerillas. 



170 NOTES. 

captains of this day. The Count Henriquez, a noble gentleman of 
France, and founder of the Portugueze monarchy, was his com- 
panion in arms ; but aftewards became his sovereign. In many a 
hardy field had the Saracens fainted from their arms, and they had 
bled together both on Ebro and the Jordan. Hence the infant 
D. Alfonso was entrusted to Egas Moniz, and was trained to chi- 
valry and each kingly duty and accomplishment in that warrior's 
castle, Head of the Douro. 

Henriquez expired in the city of Astorga, but had previously 
sent for his child, and, in a long and pathetic discourse, had given 
him his dying counsel. Again Egas Moniz received the most 
sacred of all bequests, the guardianship of his youthful sovereign ; 
and Alfonso was once more intreated to love and venerate the 
man whom his father so long had cause to love. 

Close on this melancholy event came the misconduct of the 
queen-widow, Avhose infamous intrigues obliged her son to conquer 
his inheritance. Urged by her, and by her minion, the King of 
Leon and Castile marched against Portugal ; but Egas Moniz led 
out his royal pupil, who merited his spurs in the field of Valderez 

Irritated by a defeat, where he had himself been severely wound 
ed, the monarch of Castile vowed revenge. He made every exer- 
tion to collect an overwhelming force, and re-appeared, in a few 
months, before the city of Guimaraes. Guimaraes was unpre- 
pared for a siege, being alike destitute of an army and of pro- 
visions. The whole court was then within its walls, and Egas 
Moniz saw his young sovereign on the brink of utter ruin. On 
such an occasion, and situated as Moniz was, there can be few 
who would not have hazarded their existence ; but he had a wife 
and many children : the resolution he took would have been Ro- 
man virtue in the brightest days of Rome. 

Leaving the city privately, he resorted to the quarters of the 
King of Castile, whom he endeavoured to dissuade from his enter- 
prise, urging, the strength of Guimaraes, the boldness and constancy 
of the Portuguese fidalgos, with the impolicy of affording so joyous 
a spectacle to their common enemy the Moors. The monarch as 



NOTES. 171 

was foreseen, remained inflexible ; and Egas Moniz was obliged 
to submit to his will, by a promise of his pupil's homage — for 
which purpose he was to persuade him to appear in the next 
Cortes of Leon ; or, upon this advice proving unsuccessful, to for- 
feit his own head, and the heads of his entire family. 

Great was the astonishment of young Alfonso upon seeing the 
besiegers march away ; but, informed of the stipulated homage, his 
indignation flashed forth, and he swore he would never consent to 
such degradation. 

It w T as then Egas Moniz caught him in his arms, melting at the 
memory of Henriquez, and blessing Heaven ; for he saw his les- 
sons were effectual, and that his beardless master was worthy of a 
throne. In a few words he applauded his determination, and 
shewed him the resolutions of his fldalgos, sworn to inflict death 
upon the sovereign who should brook the control of any stranger. 

The Cortes of Leon were now assembling. Egas Moniz had 
done his duty to his country, and to the offspring of his dearest 
friend ; he set about satisfying his own honour. The weak-minded 
multitude would have probably prevented his undertaking ; but 
those who best knew and loved him were deep, not loud, in their 
grief. His noble wife was soon resigned, preparing herself and 
little ones for death : nor might Alfonso interfere, though his heart 
was breaking. 

Having laid aside his armour and shield of chivahy, which he 
had so long borne, but now esteemed himself unworthy to bear; 
and having taken a solemn leave of his friends, and of his sword, 
Egas Moniz put on a vile habit, such as might become a slave, 
whose life was forfeited ; and, mounting on a sorry palfrey, and 
with a rope about his neck, departed. Similarly mounted, and 
as poorly clad, all his family followed him — and they actually tra- 
velled to Leon. 

There the King of Castille was waiting a very different arrival ; 
and, upon these news, ordered the traitor for immediate execu- 
tion. But going out to upbraid him, the sight of so renowned a 
warrior in so sad a condition overcame the monarch, and he burst 
into tears. It ended nobly ; and the vassal, faithful and true, who 



172 NOTES. 

had acted so loyally by his king, and by his enemy, was honoured, 
as a bright example, by every one, and sent back to Portugal 
with a brave escort, and splendid presents. 

This great person did not long survive, though, previous to his 
own death, he had to lament that of four children ; and he was in- 
terred in the monastery of Paco de Sousa — not because he was its 
founder,* (in this the confident Duarte Nunes is out, as he is so 
often) but because the bones of his ancestors had lain there for 
nearly two hundred years before. 

The above relation has been called in question by some writers 
whom it pleaseth the English gentleman, intitulating himself, A 
Society of Men of Letters, to copy blindly ; and, in a manner 
most cavalier, he censures the whole as a romance : but it is 
credited by those, who have most investigated its truth. Were 
every other document gone, it would be sufficiently proved by an 
undisputed tradition, and the ancient sepulchre itself. 

This sepulchre formed a parallelogram, of about three yards in 
length, and was one mass of solid masonry. Beneath lay the re- 
mains of Egas Moniz, his wife, and children, in three graves. The 
sepulchre was raised upon four small, couchant lions ; above them 
was a base, about a yard high, of flowery sculpture, tolerably well 
wrought and fancifully; and, surmounting this base, were de- 
signed — the Journey of Egas Moniz, with his Family, to Leon— 
his Death — his Interment — and the Death of his Children. The 
long faces of the monument were north and south, and all four 
faces were occupied by the sculpture. 

Northward was seen the journey. First went a page on foot, 
in white armour, bareheaded, with a lance upon his shoulder, and 
seemingly travelling; then an esquire, in white armour, bare- 
headed,! without spurs, and on horseback ; and next Egas him- 



* It was founded before 956, and by one Tructesindo Guedes. 

f He is now without a head. In the Monarquia Lusitana this 
figure is mistaken for Egas Moniz. The author, it would anpear, 
had never seen the monument he was describing. 



NOTES. 173 

self on horseback, with spurs on his heels, and enveloped in a 
cloak, but bareheaded, and with a thick rope hanging' from his 
neck. After these, there followed a camel, bearing three child- 
ren ; and a fourth figure, leaning over the eamel's neck, was ap- 
parently a man guiding it. Behind was another camel, mounted 
by a female ; a guide was by the animal's side, and close to it 
came one, seemingly a slave, almost naked, and with a stick on 
his arm, as if upon a journey. 

On the eastern face was sculptured the death of Egas Moniz. 
He was there seen stretched upon a bed, and his soul was escaping 
from his mouth in figure of a baby. It was encompassed with a 
circle, or glory, and assisted by two flying angels. A couple of 
women stood at the bed-foot, with dishevelled locks, and their 
hands to their heads, as if in woe ; and, at the pillow, appeared 
two others, in a similar attitude. 

The west of the sepulchre shewed a grave, with four men letting 
down a corpse into it. In front sat a bishop, with mitre, cloak, 
and crosier, and he was reading a book. 

The south front was occupied by the children's death. First 
was a female, seated on the ground, in violent distress — probably 
the mother ; and near her was a bed, or bier, with four infants 
stretched upon it. Behind, a man (Egas Moniz it would seem) 
was on a chair at foot of the bed, leaning on it with his right el- 
bow, while his right hand sustained his cheek : his other hand was 
at his heart. There were besides three other females in the group, 
who held various postures of great grief. 

The top of the sepulchre w r as slanting like a roof, and wrought 
in flowers, like those upon the base ; and upon it was graven this 
inscription : — 

Hie, requiescit Servus Dei Egas Munis, vir inclitus. 

This monument of the twelfth century has been considerably 
injured by a barbarian of the name of Neves, who was abbot in 



174 NOTES. 

1741. The little lions are gone;* the inscription upside down — 
every thing out of order. But, after a good deal of trouble, in 
selecting the corner stones, and remarking the joinings of the 
others, I found that certainly the whole must have stood in the 
form now described. Egas Moniz, with ihe rope about his neck, 
exists entire ; as do the other figures, excepting one. They are 
generally about eighteen inches in height. 

Brandao, and indeed all the historians, are wrong in assigning 
Moniz's death to 1146 : for, had they seen the sepulchre, they 
would have known, that, upon such a point, it is no authority. 
The date of Caesar, 1 184, which it bears, was not originally be- 
longing to it, but only added in after times, by people misinformed, 
on the matter. This is evident from the dissimilarity of letters, — 
" Hie requiesit" &c. being in Gothic characters ; and " (Era Mil- 
lessima," &c. in Roman ones. But I have seen Egas Moniz's 
will, or rather codicil to his will, and it is dated 1185 — that is, 
1147. 

9- 
The words of wisdom thrice each day in hall, 
From sage, or heroes' lips, were heard to fall. 

Par. iv. line 48. 

Let it not be supposed, that the cultivation of the mind was 
quite neglected in those early times. Both the reformers of lite- 
rature of Leo X. and those of religion who succeeded, have per- 
haps been fastidiously delicate, and sought to enhance their own 
merits by an affected depreciation of their ancestors. If literature 
be advanced by the honour paid to its professors, what are we to 

* That the monument was raised on lions is certain, frorfi the 
old MS. diatorio (diary) of Pa^o de Sousa. The horses' heads at 
present under it were evidently plundered from the outside wall 
of the church. 



NOTES. 175 

say? The veneration of those distant years for learning seems to 
us almost incredible, and the multitude and avidity of the students 
exceed belief. 

'■ From the middle of the eleventh to the end of the thirteenth 
century, the Troubadours were dispersed through most of the 
courts of Europe. Their language," says Dryden, " was most 
polished, and Chaucer employed it to refine his own." Feats of 
arms, the tears and gratitude of love, accomplished lords, and 
peerless ladies, were the brilliant subjects of song. The bravest 
knights were illustrious by their pens also, and our own Cceur-de- 
Lion was as well a poet * as a warrior and king. 

To us Abeillard is known only as a sturdy sophister. But he 
was a more elegant scholar, and often wrote verses : — " Quibus f 
quidein quasi ludo quodam laborem exercitii recreano Philosophici 
pluraque amatorio metro vel rithmo composite, reliquisti car- 
mina . . . . Et cum horum pars maxima nostros cantaret amores 
multis me regionibus brevi tempore nunciavit et multarum in me 
faeminarum accendit invidiam." — " We have to lament," observes 
the interesting Berington, " that these compositions of Abeillard 
have all sunk in the devouring stream of lime : 1 have otherwise 
no doubt but the French nation would have them to boast of, as 
the elegant maiden productions of their earliest muse." 

" In the halls," writes Froissart, " in the apartments, in the 
open courts, the knights and 'squires of honour passed and re- 
passed, and discoursed of love and of arms. All honour was found 
here; intelligence from every country: there was no kingdom 
whatsoever from which news were not here obtained ; for, from 
every part of the world,, they came to behold the good Count de 
Foix. 



* See one of his songs, his prison-song, in Cat. of Royal and 
Noble Authors. 
f Ep. 1. Heloisae Abeillardo. 



176 NOTES. 

10. 
What boldness, courtesy, and truth befit, 
Or Jongleurs sung zohat Troubadours had writ. 

Par. iv. line 52. 

The Jongleurs were the reciters of a poet's verses ; sometimes 
too they adapted them to music, although this was in general the 
province of the hards, or minstrels. In those compositions were 
rehearsed the chief virtues of a perfect knight—" faith, charity, 
justice, reason, prudence, temperance, force, truth, generosity, 
diligence, hope, and valour." After these higher duties, every sub- 
ordinate maxim of goodness and of wisdom was instilled : narrow- 
ness and prodigality were to be shunned alike, 

*' Ne gasteres ne soies mie 
Ce appartieot a felonnie." 

And, in the Castoirement d'un Pere a son jils, wo are presented 
with all the most prudent counsels for the regulation of life. As 
for the grosser crimes — " cruelty, idleness, avarice/' &c. — it sa- 
voured of degradation even to have named them. 

Bravery in the combat was scarcely superior to humility and 
gentleness in conquest. After the French monarch's arrival in 
England, " as * he rode through London, he was mounted on a 
white steed with very rich furniture ; and the Prince of Wales on 
a little, black hackney, by his side, The King of France kept 
his household in the Palace of the Savoy, where the king and 
queen were frequent in their visits, consoling him all in their 
power." 

After the battle of Calais, King Edward entertained all Ins 
prisoners ; and, after supper, " remained f in the hall among the 



* Froiss. v. ii. p. 371. t K>id- 247. 



NOTES. 177 

English and French knights, bareheaded, except a chaplet of fine 
pearls, which was round his head. He conversed with them all 
.... but when he came to Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont — a strong 
and hardy knight, whom he had encountered in the battle — he said 
with a smile, "Sir Eustace, you are the most valiant knight in 
Christendom that ever I saw attack his. enemy, or defend himself: 
I adjudge to you the prize of valour above all the knights of my 
court, as what is justly due to you. Sir Eustace, I present you 
with this chaplet, as being the best combatant this day, either 
within or without doors ; and I beg of you to wear it this year for 
love of me." 

To such examples of courtesy and honour were added descrip- 
tions of the air and accomplishments of a finished knight. His 
arms were to be handsome, and of high price ; and his saddle, 
shield, and the pennon of his lance, were to be of one colour. In 
no part of his costume, in fine, should any glaring contrast be ob- 
servable : a great mixture of tints is ever inelegant. Thus, in the 
Arcadia, Phalantus of Corinth " was all in white, having his bases 
and caparisson embroidered with a waving water. " Nestor was 
in black ; Philiphus had his furniture and armour of a sea-colour, 
and Clitiphon's were all over " gilded with gold." 

Nothing more ennobles the presence than a beautiful head of 
hair: a flower of knighthood should wash his hair very often. His 
linen should be fine and white ; his shoes, hose, vest, should be 
particularly attended to, and his robe should be short, and wide 
across the breast. By the eyes and hands a man is often judged ; 
there should be a softness and dignity in them both. A princely 
munificence was ever to be displayed, and all castles should have 
their gates thrown open, not to lords and ladies only, but to grooms, 
strollers, jongleurs, and retainers of every description. — The best 
guides in such points are Vidal, and the Troubadour, Amaud de 
Marsan, the Chesterfield of chivalry. 



178 NOTES-. 

11. 
The < martyr' d-Merida' had followed well 
The Faladine, Pelayo, and Martel. 

Par. iv. line 56. 

Menda underwent a horrible carnage from the Moors: henee it 
was ever after called, " Metida de los Mctrtyres." 

Charles, sirnamed Martel, or the Hammerer, defeated the Sara- 
cens in a great engagement between Tours and Poictiers. 

This was the age of submissive credulity, and, according to the 
assertion of Paul the deacon, three hundred and seventy five thou- 
sand of the enemy perished. 

12. 
Inspiring love, that melts the soul away. 

Par. iv. line 59. 

Love after all is lord paramount in chivalry, — from Perceforest, 
Anadis de Gaul, and the Provenpaux, to the pages scarcely less ro- 
mantic of Froissart. Hence, TJie courts and parliaments of love, 
the strangest surely of all the whims of strange man. 

The decrees of those tribunals, where sovereigns were not 
ashamed of presiding, w r ere executed with a rigour, unknown to 
any other jurisdiction of the age. Richard the First introduced 
them into England, and Germany received them from the Emperor 
Frederic Barbarossa. They were protected by the Pope at Avig- 
non, and a celebrated French lawyer wrote to defend them, " on 
the authority of the Roman code and the decisions of the fathers 
of the church." 

Which should you prefer — the death of your mistress, or that 
she were married to another? 

Who should be most blamed — he who boasts of favours he never 
was granted, or he who publishes what he really received ? 

Had you an assignation at night with your, mistress, whether 



NOTES. 17& 

aught you to like most— to see me leaving her apartment when 
you were entering; or, to see me entering when you were leaving 
her? 

Such questions, and a wilderness of mystic matters that I dare 
not quote, were daily argued in those courts, and decided without 
appeal. The love of ladies and that of the Almighty where always 
named together, and considered of quite equal obligation : and you 
listened to treatises professing " The art of gaining a mistress, of 
pleasing her when gained, and of how to quit her when you please, 
with a demonstration of the world's vanity, and how one ought to serve 
God.— See Fabliaux (Le Grand) T. 2. 

The Troubadour's song is in some manner an imitation of the 
Troubadour Arnaud Daniel. 

13. 
What prayer and varied form oar youths befel, 
77 hen knighthood narrCd them of its honoured train. 

Par. iv. line 73. 

For an account of the various ceremonies used in conferring 
knighthood, see our own historians — Hume, Henry, Robertson, 
Godwin. It is only necessary to remark, that they were different 
in different ages and circumstances. Thus Hugh of Tabary obliges 
Saladin to no vigil of arms in the church, as was elsewhere so cus- 
tomary, although he enjoins his hearing of mass and fasting upon 
Fridays. 

St. Pelaie is inclined to distinguish between the military chivalry 
and the religious: perhaps M. de Chateaubriand is very right in 
holding, that there are grounds wanting for the distinction. The 
principal order of knighthood were, those of Malta in the east ; in 
the west and north the Teutonick order ; and the knights of Cala- 
trava, including those of Alcantara and St. James-of-tbe-sword, in 
the south of Europe. Whatever minor varieties might exist, their 
principal features were tlie same: the profession with them all was 
an impressive scene, and attended by the solemnities of religion. 

M '2 



180 NOTES. 

14. 
Their infant years have rolPd, and still she is 
Alonzo's chosen one. 

Par. vi. line 2. 

Jn the same castle with the pages many noble ladies were also 
educated, and they were encouraged in forming those romantic at- 
tachments, for which the age was so remarkable. Thus Amadis de 
Gaul* sees in the court of King Languines that lovely Oriane, with 
the brightness of whose beauty all Scotland was dazzled : and as 
" child of the sea" feels, ere his twelfth year, the first warmth of pas- 
sion, never to be extinguished. 

The ladies were no longer what they were in the most polished 
days of Rome, when " women were considered," says Madame de 
Stael, " in no other light than as slaves, intended by nature for that 
unhappy state." They now, on the contrary, enjoyed every advan- 
tage of the youths around them, and received an education, which 
made them worthy of the heroism they were to inspire. 

The Chastoiement des Dames appears to be of the 11th or 12th cen^ 
tury; and, although tedious, it presents a gratifying picture of that 
distant period. The counsels of Robert de Blois are both beauti- 
ful and prudent. His lovely auditors were to be gentle in their 
manners, and their speech and conduct were to be purity itself. 
They were to be courteous, though reserved, inviolably candid and 
religious. Love is attended with many dangers ; they who know 
it best, arc to be most deplored ; it shakes the resolutions of the 
strong, and turns the wisest into fools — he will not counsel them to 
love: 

iC Je ne vous lo, ains vous deffent 
Amer. Cil qui plus y entent 
Et qui plus en cuide savoir 
Est li plus fols a l'estevoir." 

* Am. de Gaul. T. 1. p. 91.-— a Amsterdam, 1750. 



NOTES. l&l 

Their affections once engaged, they were to be all fidelity, and, 
" should other suitors address you," continues he, " tell them, my 
heart, gentle knight, is given where it ought, tohirri to whom my 
faith is plighted :" — 

u Celui aim-je que amer doi 
A cui j'ai promise ma foi 
Cil l'aura qui le doit avoir." 

" Be ye thus, fair ladies, amiable and virtuous, as you are beauti- 
ful ; and let even your looks be sacred to him :"— 

t* Cil a cui vous estes toute."* 

Nor was the sex untinctured with the literature of the times. 
Azalais, Donna Castelloza, Madam Clara, and the Countess 
of Provence, were among the Troubadours of foremost rank. 
But the tender and sublime Eloisa was a prodigy more astonish- 
ing: and, " inf the twelfth century, science unlocked to her those 
treasures, which the female candidates of modern times would 
perhaps ask of her in vain. The latin and Greek tongues were 
familiar to her : she was acquainted with the best authors of an- 
cient Rome : had been deeply initiated in the philosophy of the 
age, and knew what the wise men of antiquity had taught. She 
was gentle and mild as innocence ; learned as the most learned 
of her time : her soul was Roman, and her heart was a heart of 
fire." 

But the political struggles were at that period very frequent : 
even females might have been in situations, where enervation would 
have been ruinous. Hence they were not permitted to lose sight of 
the courage natural to their noble birth ; and neither Tasso, nor Sir 
Philip Sydney, with his " hapless fair Parthenia," is at variance 
with probability. History affords many instances of delicate ladies 



* Les grands Fabliaux (Barbazan). 
t Life of Abeill, p. 75—6. 



182 NOTES. 

appearing on emergency in battle, like that Countess of Montford, 
" equal" says Froissart, " to a man ; for she had the heart of a lion, 
and with a rusty sharp sword in her hand she combated bravely." 



15. 

Trained to the Red-branch chivalry — nor less 
To arts and learning, in their last recess. 

Par. vi. line 9. 

Let me not be blamed for thus dispatching Ferdinand in quest of 
letters and knighthood to Ireland. I treat of the eleventh century. 
From years too dim to be discernible history turns with a look of 
calm regret, and leaves to the poet his legitimate domain. Would 
lie then be criminal in saying, " I have been to the garden of ob- 
livion, and, behold ! I bore away these flowers, for I saw they were 
belonging to my country." 

To Ireland, however, such a fanciful courtesy was unnecessary ; 
nor has she of these latter ages been accustomed to receive .many 
free gifts. Conscious of an antique wreath, and of its unfading na- 
ture, she looked with a melancholy pride only to have it handled — 
for so the dust would have been shaken, under which it lay for so 
many years of neglect and misery. That has not been done ; she 
is without an historian, and. with the exception of Vallancey and 
O'Connor, none have even glanced at her antiquities. Enough, 
notwithstanding, has been ascertained for my present purpose. 

By the barbarians overrunning the Roman empire, Ireland, it is 
known, was unattacked, perhaps unnoticed : neither did the wild 
Saxons invade her: and while England, in common with the rest 
of Europe, was suffering from those hordes, the islet of the west 
remained unprofaned by any foreign force. At a very early pe- 
riod, too, it had been converted to Christianity ; since we find a 
Bishop Paladius, and St. Patrick, sent thither before the middle of 
the fifth century— not to sow the faith, but to prune it : " mediantc a 



NOTES. 183 

doctrina dos quaes," says the Portuguese annalist, " forao alunii- 
adasaquellas gentes." 

With only these data — the independence of Ireland and her 
Christianity — might we not confidently pronounce her, the last re- 
treat of learning' ? I speak not of her ecclesiastics : but were there 
no persons in Spain, Gaul, or even England — had Rome and the 
Roman spirit so completely vanished, that not one of her sons was 
capable of preferring verdant fields, freedom, religion, and the arts, 
to ignorance, slavery, and the ferocious rites of the north ? It were 
an absurdity to suppose — How stand facts ? " Such* was the en- 
couragement given to the cultivation of letters by the princes of 
Ireland, and so great was the concourse of students thither from all 
parts, that was a man of literature missing on the continent, the 
answer was — " amandatus est ad disciplinam in ffibernia" — So in 
tiie life of Fulgentius : — 

* Exemplo Patrum commotus amore legendi 
Ivit ad Hibernos sophia mirabili claros." 

In the college of Mayo Alfred the Great imbibed his virtues, and 
there too he procured teachers for his newlj -erected university of 
Oxford. Pavia and Paris are indebted to Ireland for their first 
professors, Clement and Alcorn: the subtle doctor and Yirgilius, the 
learned bishop of Strasburgh, were both Irishmen. 

That a Danish invasion occured on close of the eighth century is 
very true ; but it was not of a nature to smother literature. This 
is clear from Eric of Auxerre's letter to " Charles le chauve," — 
Why do I speak of Ireland? That whole nation, almost despising the 
dangers of the sea, are continually visiting your dominions with a 
great company of philosophers, &c. — " Neque enim," says Mura- 
tori, f* Silenda laus Brittanniae, Scotiae, et Hibemice, quae studio Ii- 

* Plowden,Encjclop. YalJan. O'Conn. Rede, LTIist. de France, 
et passim, et Arch. Peerage, v. 2. p. 10 — 12. Muratorii Antiqui. 
Italia?, Diss. 43. Fabliaux du xi. Siecle ct du xii. passim. 



184 NOTES. 

beralium artium eo tempore antecellebant reliquis occidentalibus 
rognis ; et cura praesertim mouachorum qui literaram gloriam alibi 
aut languentem aut depressant in iis regionibus inipigre suscitarent 
atque tuebantur." 

But the brightest age for Ireland dates from 1002, when the ce- 
lebrated hero, Brien Boromh, having entirely reduced the Danes, 
commenced bis reign as monarch of the whole island. He, who 
had won in person twenty-five pitched battles, spent the remainder 
of his long and glorious course in cultivating all the arts of peace. 
Churches and schools were erected — the decayed universities re- 
paired, — bridges and public works of every description multiplied. 
With Brien's immediate successors, exertions of a similar nature 
were unabated, and the crown of Ireland arrived at a maturity of 
splendour upon the brows of Morto-more, sirnamed the Great. 
None ever swayed the sceptre with more wisdom than this monarch: 
and when, from his age, he deemed himself unequal to the cares of 
government, he surrendered the throne, and betook himself to his 
retirement of Lismore. — This event took place in 1116. 

Thus the eleventh century, elsewhere gloomy, was in Ireland a 
period of splendour and happiness. There were virtuous princes 
to be found ; men of worth and of learning from every country re- 
sorted thither ; there were established laws ; the red-branch knights, 
with their shields and collars of gold, displayed all valour and cour- 
tesy ; so, that " had a beautiful maiden, adorned with Jewells, travell- 
ed throughout the kingdom alone, no attempt would have been 
made upon her honour or her treasure." 

16. 
In old Eamania minstrels rolTd along 
Their country's glories in their splendid song. 

Par. vi. line 41. 

Eamania was the great national council before Tara. This coun- 
cil embraced the three free estates of the kingdom, — the monarchy, 
the clergy, the knights and nobles. It was hoi den annually, and the 



NOTES. 185 

history of twelve months was there presented for correction. To 
compose this history was the duty of the Crotaries, or Bards. Their 
compositions were in a kind of recitativo, accompanied by their 
harps. The wise and valiant could not have been past by unpraised ; 
but the Crotaries were obliged to adhere to considerable simplicity ; 
and, since every member of Eamania had a right of checking their 
mistakes, it is probable, that records, so scrupulously criticised, were 
neither glaringly partial, nor very incorrect. 

The Crotary was distinguishable by a bright- striped robe, and his 
profession was esteemed illustrious. 

17. 
By sainted-Arran, when the moon-beam fell 
By lonely Tuaran-wave or Croghan's dell. 

Par. vi. line 47. 

Endus, Lord of Ergall and llosnal, obtained a grant of the island 
of Arran, wherein he erected a monastery, afterwards so venerated 
as to bear the name Arran-of -Saints. A romantic cell near the 
water Tuaran, and encompassed with woods, is highly venerated 
by the Irish : as is also another called Croghan's Dell, near the black- 
water in the county Kerry. In this grotto was composed the austere 
Law of Kiaran, and the stalactical exudations are much esteemed 
by the country people, as possessing many virtues. The erection of 
schools and convents was the current religion : their numbers in 
Ireland exceeded calculation, and one Luanus alone is said to have 
founded a hundred of thein. I think Butler, naturally enough, hak^ 
canonized him for it. 

18. 
The blithe kulinkry, and the hunter's horn; 
On groves of verdure smiVd the Shanon's sun. 

Par. vi. line 54. 
The kulinkry, or dancing hero. 
That Ireland, but particularly along the banks of the Shanon, was 



186 NOTES. 

once profusely wooded, is sufficiently evident from her bogs. In 
these the whole process is observable, from the sound trunk to peat 
fully formed. The trees, in a large bog, lie invariably in one direc- 
tion, as if they had been purposely felled, and I have been assured, 
that, in many instances, the traces of an axe are distinctly seen. 

" They travelled along the foot of a mountain," says Palmerin 
(B. 1. p. 215), " thinking it a goodly land: for it was full of lofty 

trees, such as Ireland is still wooded with." The natives have a 

saying to this purport : — She was twice a forest, and twice a bog, 
and will be again a forest before the end. 

? 9: 

Drop we the veil! — Rest, fever 7 d spirit rest. 

Par. vi. line 61. 

That Ireland has not sinned, I do not say : that she has been 
sinned against, who may deny? A system was earned on for years, 
ill serving to conciliate a people of fiery feelings, and, perhaps, of 
no very calculating judgment. There are men, who may be emi- 
nently dangerous, yet the easiest in the world to reclaim : there are 
some men, with an appearance of unsteadiness, whose attachment 
is well worth securing — when a ; mall matter may gain a friend, who 
would rather die with you than survive you. 

What would tranquillize my country ? — If the measure termed 
Emancipation, why is it withcld ? Withheld, noble-minded England, 
by you? — you, who are lavishing your bounty upon all : — upon the 
Spaniard, who detests you for a heretic — on the Sicilian, stabbing 
you in the dark — on the Hollander, whose hatred is not less dead- 
ly, because less open — on a multitude of nations, who, with itch- 
ing palms and moulhs, gaping for jour money, are ever greedy to 
condemn you. Ay ! and strike at you, if they only durst. Let 
England, as she will, sow her kindness in foreign soils ; yet her best 
harvest shall be ingratitude. I appeal to facts : the governments 
she most upheld, are they not the bitterest of her enemies ? 



NOTES. 187 

20. 

the leopard on his shield, 

And stars of golden in an azure field. 

Par. viii. line I. 

They are the arms of the Monizes. — " In azure, five stars golden, 
of seven rays and forked • crest, a leopard azure, with a star of the 
arms on his head." (Brazao Liv. III.) 

21. 

this foreign lay was learned, for thee. 

Par. ix. line 122. 

The ancient Irish ministrels, no doubt, wrote generally in Gaelic; 
I am told it possesses an energy and sweetness that well accord with 
poetry : but that, occasionally, they composed both in Romane and 
in Provengal is clear from their ranking among the Troubadours and 
the Fablers. Since they are described, as travelling to the different 
courts, and with a simple notice of their country, it cannot be ques- 
tioned, that their tales and songs were in the usual languages of the 
day. Thus, in the Lai du Buisson D'Epine* we are told of " an 
Irish Trouveur, who, entering the hall after banquet, sung the Lai 
of Alix and that of Orpheus."f id ons. Le Grand regrets his inabi- 
lity to discover those two celebrated poems, " qui etaient celebres 
et dont il est souvent parle dans les poesies du terns." Do they 
exist in Ireland ? 

22. 
Weave, weave ye maids of Innisfail. % 

Par. ix. line 124. 

This song is built on a romantic superstition of the Irish, There 

* Fabliaux (Le Grand) T. 4. p. 106. 

f The Lai du Buisson d'epipe is of the twelfth century — proba- 
bly those of Alix then and of Orpheus were of the eleventh. 
% Innisfail, Icrne, Erin, or Ireland. 



188 NOTES, 

is a black Duke, or Earl, who is enchanted in the hill of Haclem, in 
the county Louth. He is said to have last appeared when Brien 
Boromh expelled the Danes, and he is to reappear whenever Ireland 
Is infested with a powerful enemy. I have never met any one who 
saw this black Earl ; but it is not at all an uncommon thing to stum- 
ble on some of his retinue ; one person told me that, coming down 
the road on a summer evening, and hearing the tread of horses, and 
a noise of the creaking of new saddles, he knew it was the Earl's 
stud. There were many thousand horses, all grey, and shod with 
silver, and the grooms were in scarlet jackets. This person did not 
speak to the grooms, being in great fear of mind. Not unfrequently 
the peasants, when at labour, hear a voice from the opposite side of 
the hedge asking, " is it time V and they are very careful to answer, 
" no, not yet." One unlucky yes might dissolve the enchantment, 
and then the black Earl and all his mighty army would burst from 
the hill. — For, only a single night each year, is the Earl permitted tq 
come to life ; and he employs it in reviewing his troops, on the great 
Currash of Kildare. That night is well known, and no peasant ven- 
tmes to intrude on the parade, 



NOTES TO CANTO It 



" Rock-of-the-Cid F (for still thou bear*st a name 
Shall live— so doubly is it seaVd to fame. u - 
Outlive this Granite-mass, Time loves to spare.) 

Pai\ i. ling I* 

This renowned knight is indeed transmitted to fatality with two 
imattaintable titles — his own story and the tragedy of Corneille. 
There is a rock at Teruel, still named " Pona del Seyd-" it was on 
the pinnacle of this that his " alcazar*" castle, formerly stood. After 
some residence at Teruel, the Cid ; aroused by the miseries of Ms 
fellow Christians, rushed down, like a lion from his den, upon Va- 
lencia. The Moors were expelled from the whole provincej and the 
Cid henceforth resided in its beautiful city. 

24. 
But now were gaily heard — they shall not long — ■ 
The southern peasant's sweet guitar and song. 

Par. ii, line L 

Not long did the happiness of Valencia endure ; for, upon the 
Cid's decease, 1099, it again fell into the Moors' possession. 

Yet, not even in death was the good Cid forgetful of his people : 
I believe he is the only general, whose remains led out his army to 
'battle, after the mighty soul had fled. AH the women and property 
of the Christians had been placed on mules, or waggons, for the put- 



190 NOTES. 

pose of retiring into Castille ; but, in order to facilitate their retreat, 
it was necessary to check the Moors, encamped in the vicinity. For 
this purpose the Cid's corpse was prepared, according to his own 
dying' advice; and, being cased in mock armour, Was raised on horse- 
back, and kept upright by two boards — one before and the other at 
his back. When the Moors saw his presence leading on the Christ- 
ians so, they were troubled sorely, saying : — " Behold the good Ruy 
Dias has come to life : and yonder he is upon Bavieca, and with his 
white-beard and coladain his hand I" — The consequence was a great 
-victory ; King Bucar, with, I believe, thirty-five other kings of the 
Moors, perishing on the field. The Christians, after this, marched 
on quietly towards Castille : but were met half-way by the King D» 
Alfonso, who came lamenting for his good vassal the Cid. 

25. 

The Tourney's splendour 



Par. iii. line 2. 

The Tourney, as every body knows, was the grand spectacle of 
chivalry : " Festa publica cortesaa e militar." The more solemn of 
them were proclaimed a year and a day before hand, and not a court 
in Europe but, if possible, was present. Budaeus deduces the Tour- 
ney from some celebrated deeds of arms performed by young cava- 
liers, in the plains of Troy, on occasion of the nuptials of the Princess 
Ilione, daughter of old Priam, with Polymnestor, King of Thrace. 
Hence, he says, the title Troia agnrina, in low Latin Tarneamina. 
Bet Bluteau gives another etymology : " the jousts were single en- 
counters ; but, since in Tourneys large squadrons were engaged, 
each one might be said to turn in skirmish, torneava,* torneamen- 
tuni" — Tournament. " Who shall decide," &c. 

The real invention of Tournaments is arrogated to France ; and, 
indeed, her claim is generally allowed. In the eleventh century 
they are described as arising there ; whence, passing into England, 

* Vocabolario, T. 5. p. 212, 



NOTES. 191 

and ail Christian Europe, they were finally received by the Grecian 
emperors, by the Saracens of Asia, and by the Spanish Moors. In 
the history of the Peninsula, however, there are not wanting in- 
stances of regular Tourneys somewhat earlier. The Arabian an- 
nalist, Albucacim Abentarique, mentions a magnificent one, given 
by the Spanish king at Toledo in 712.* 

* I think Mr. Scott, in notes to his D. Roderick, speaks of this 
history of Abucacim as spurious : but, by the Spanish and Portugese 
critics it is highly prized. I have not been able to peruse the origin- 
al ; but I have read two translations of it — one in French, and the 
other by Miguel de Luna. Albucacim deals little in the marvellous ; 
at least, he vouches for only what he has seen, and he sees nothing 
that is incredible. The whole story of the enchanted tower, &c. he 
expressly gives as " very strange," and not upon his own authority, 
but upon that of " many Spaniards" just as capable of inventing 
that kind of falsehood as all the other Christians at the time in Eu- 
rope. — Florinda's letter to her father is curious : — 

" My tender recollections and sorrow for absence from my father's 
sight, whom, with reason, I love so much, are causes of my writing 
this long importunate letter. It will bear you a piece of news — for 
me new enough, however it be old in Spain ! And of all the won- 
derful transactions in this palace, this I am to relate is the most re- 
markable — and what never before occurred to a king : and it is — 
that while I was sitting on a table foolishly and careless, and still 
preserving the ring enclosed in my letter, with the emerald set into 
it, (jewel of mine ! and held by all my friends in a just esteem) 
down upon it fell the royal cutlass, and broke it, unfortunately, in two. 
The green stone is divided in the middle, nor am I able to amend it. 
So great is the confusion this disaster has occasioned me, that never 
can my tongue be able to express it in all my life ! Father ! O my 
dearly loved father ! apply some remedy to my sufferings, if possi- 
ble : lor I feel, that there is in Spain not one who can remedy them. 
■VI v poor mother is not very w r cll, and I, in like manner. God hold' 
vou ever in his gnard.— Toledo, on the third of December, Bra 750.' 



192 NOTES. 

26. 
Lords and ladies, fye. 

Par. iii. line 5. 

They are a translation from the MS. of Enstache Des-champs, 
as quoted by Mons. de St Pelaie in his notes. 

Here, however, as well as in the many instances where that gen- 
tleman is my authority for the wages of chivalry, memory is my 
principal guide ; for I have not seen his books since I quitted Eng- 
land. They had been sent to me, when in Lisbon, and, with them, 
two E. Reviews, the Giaour, and the Bride of Abydos. Upon their 
arrival in the Tagus, being myself confined to my bed, I commis- 
sioned a friend to bring my little parcel to me : but, by some inad- 
vertency or other, it fell into the hands of the Inquisition. As to the 
English productions I despair of them ; but every exertion was 
made to recover the others, nor did I suspect they could have been 
withheld. But nine months elapsed in vain : " Adhuc sub Judice 
lis est ;" the reverend fathers have not as yet been able to decide, 
whether the memoirs on ancient chivalry be heretical or not. 



My translation is from Miguel de Luna, word for word, and he, 
I believe, was faithful to his text. The Frenchman appears to have 
a little wantoir'd on the matter. Such, according to Albucacim, was 
Florinda's real letter to the Count Julian: as to Marinna's fine 
epistle, it is invention. 

By the way, there are some who exculpate the unfortunate D. 
Roderick in all this transaction. Laymundus, who was not of his 
chaplains, wrote a short chronicle of the downfall of Spain, wherein 
he shews, that neither Florinda, nor the monarch, were in fault; but 
attributes it entirely to the infernal passions of Florinda's mother, 
and one Bemigotha, her intriguing Abigail. 



NOTES, 193 

27. . - - 

His shield, that hung in church two nights, #c. 

Par. iv. line 3. 

For some nights previous to opening- the lists, eacli candidate for 
glory was obliged to suspend his shield and coat of arms in the 
neighbouring church. There the ladies viewed them at leisure, and 
had the right of excepting against any knight, by marking his shield. 
An appeal lay to the judges, who were bound to hear witnesses, and 
to decide impartially. 

That the Christians of Spain should have exhibited both in their 
horses, weapons, blazonry, and other ornaments, their Moorish tro- 
phies, is natural enough : even in England it was one of the ways by 
which a villain was made a noble, — " yif he kill a Sarsyn, he may 
wear the Sarsyn'scotarmure."* 

28. 
Till tears its gimp of lily, as he fell. 

Par. iv. line 21. 

It was not unusual for the young knights of ouly a year's standing, 
to cover their shields with a gimp, or gimple of white or yellow. 
This real or affected humility was meant to shew, that they did not 
esteem themselves worthy of publicly displaying their family coat of 
aims, until they should have been distinguished by some achieve- 
inent. 

29. 
The gothic dragon green, the vermil crozon 
Of France, and Mattos silver-pine, Sfc, 

Par. iv. line 24. 

It is a dispute among historians, whether the ancient arms of 



* Book of St, A loan's. 
o 



194 NOTES. 

France were three toads, or three vermil crowns in a silver field. 
Paulus Emilius is of the latter opinion.* 

The Mattos, a very distinguished family of the Peninsula, bear in 
a field of vermil, a silver pine between two golden lions, battant and 
armed in azure. 

30. 
With Amur of the lineage high, zoho borls 
The Jigs, $c. 

Par. iv. line 2S, 

The Figueiroas, or Figuiredos, are of the most antique nobility of 
either Castille, Portugal, or Galicia. Their original apellation was 
Ansur ; but their present one, as well as their arms, was gained on 
the following occasion. — 

The Christians residing in the Moorish possessions were well 
enough treated, or, at worst, only had to pay some pecuniary con- 
tributions : f — but all Spaniards were not thus happy. Those pro- 



* Liv. 1. Ay. de Gestis Franc,. Liv. I. 
t On this subject there is a curious document given by de Brito : 
" Alboacem Iben Mahumet, Alhamar Iben Tarif belator fortis, 
vincitor Hispaniarum, dominator, Caballarise, Gothorum, et magna* 
litis Roderici, &c. — " Ego ordinavi quod Christiani de meas terras 
pecten dupliciter quam Mauri et de Ecclesiis per Singulas XXV 
pesantes de bono argento" — the monasteries are to pay 50, and 
bishopricks 100 besants, and the Christians are to appoint a magis- 
trate of their own to judge according to the Christian code — " et non 
malabunt hominem sine jusu de Alcaide, seu Alvazile Sarraceno ; 
sed ponent ilium apres de Alcaide et monstrabunt suos Juzgos, et 
ille dicebit bene est, et dabunt ei pro bene est, V pesantes argenti et 
matabunt Culpatum." — If a Christian murders a Moor he is to be 
punished by Moorish law. — " Si esforciaverit Sarracenam Virginem, 
sit Maurus et recipiat illam, sin matent eum ; si fuerit de Marite 



NOTES. 195 

vinces, where the Caliphs could exert only a kind of military supe- 
riority, were dreadfully persecuted. Of all their grievances, per- 
haps, the most intolerable — certainly the most ignominious, was an 



matent eum." — A Christian entering into a mosque, or cursing Al* 
lah or Mahomet, let him become Moor or die. — " Bispi de Chris- 
tianis non maledicant Reges maurorum, sin moriantur. Presbyteri 
non faciant suas missas nisi portis cerratis sin peiten X pesantes 
argenti. Monasteria quae sunt in meo mando, habeant sua bona ini 
pace, et pechen preditos L pesantes, Monasterium de montanis, 
qui dicitur Laurbano, non peclie nullo pesante ; quoniam bona in- 
tentione monstrant mihi loca de suis venatis, e faciunt Sarracenis 
bona acolhenza et nunquam inveni falsum, neque malum animum, 
in illis qui morant ibi ; et totas suas hereditates possldeant cum pace 
et bona quiete sine rixa et sine vexatione neque forcia de Mauris ; 
et veniant et vadant ad Colinbriam cum libertate per diem et per 
noctem, quando melius velint aut nolint; emant et vendant sine 
pecho." After some further privileges the decree thus equitably 
closes: — " etutomnes sciant, faciam Cartam Salvo conducto et do 
Christianis ut habeant illam pro suo juzgo et mostrent cum Mauri 
requisiverint ab illis. Et si quis de Sarracenis non sibi observarit 
nostrum juzgo, in quo fecerit damnum componat pro suo avere, vel 
pro sua vita et sic juzgo de illo, sicut de Christianis, usque ad sangui- 
nem et vitam. — Fuit facta Karta de juzgo era de Christianis 772 : 
Secundum vero Amios Arabum 147. Luna 13. dulhija. — Alboacem 
Iben, &c. — rogatu Christianorum firmavi pro more -f- et dederunt 
pro robore duos equos optimos et Ego confirmavi totum." — 

The tolerant notions of this worthy Musulman might not discredit 
princes of a greater pretence to civilization. 

The Annotator to La Clede— T. 2. p. 195— questions the authen- 
ticity of this paper, upon no good grounds. He himself commits a 
gross error in calling the " Era de Christianis," the Christian era, 
which it certainly was not— as well as in calling 772 A. D. the 
116th Regit a. Brito calls this date 772, that of Cajsar; which 

o2 



We NOTES. 

annual tribute of- 100 noble virgins. These were, however, occa- 
sionally retaken by the gallantry of some devoted knights. One 
Goesto Amur was the most renowned, who rescued six, that were 
already on their way for Cordova. The exploit took place in a 
"Cerca," or fig garden, and Goesto Ansur, having broken his sword, 
tore up a fig-root, and, attacking the Moors, carried off his lovely 
prize. The scene of his victory is to this day called " Figueiredo 
das Donas." The following is a very ancient ballad on the subject, 
as it is still sung by the vintagers in Beira. 

'Twas all amid the figs,* 

The fig-trees all around, 
Six maidens I would find, 

Six maidens found ; 
I wish'd to creep me nearthera, 

Near them I did creep ; 
I wish'd to see them weeping — 

I saw them weep. 
Awhile and I would ask them, 

I ask'd them in awhile, 

would be 734 of Christ, and indeed 115 of the Hegira— not 147. 
But until we arc more certain of what was the era employed at that 
time in every part of Spain, an obscurity of arranging the Hegiras 
precisely with the Christian computation, cannot be allowed to throw 
doubts upon records, with all the other proofs of genuineness. In fact, 
similar difficulties occur regarding almost all the oldest Spanish pa* 
pers, wherein an Hegira and a Christian date are found together. 
See that multifarious production, the Espana Sagrada — passim. 

* " No figueiral figueiredo 
A no figueiral entrey 
Seis Nina3 encontrara 
Seis Niaas encontrey, &c. 



NOTES. 19^ 

Who could thus have wrong'd them, 

With law so vile 1 
? Twas all amid the figs, 

The fig-trees all around, 
And whence the wrong said one 

We have not found ; 
But woe the land doth bear 

A bad king crown'd ! 
And had I skill in arms, 

Infante, I do not say, 
That man should do this wrong — 

No ! by my fay ! 
Adeos, boy, Adeos : 

I know not, boy, not I, 
Should you now be replying. 

If I reply! 

Twas all amid the figs, 

The fig-trees all around, 
No ! by my fay ! I answer'd 3 

I'll hold my ground. 
The eyes of that dear face 

Dearly will L buy, 
And over distant lands 

Behind thee fly, 
And on the long, long, ways 

Be ever nigh ! 
Tongues uncouth and strange, 

I will speak them all ; 
Moors perceiving me, 

Soon shall fall. 



108 NOTES. 

'Twas all amid the figs, 

The fig-trees all around, 
A Moor was guarding there. 

The Cerca-ground ; 
111 he threaten'd her, 

111 his threats I bore, 
Tearing at the root, 

The root I tore : 
Then beating down the Moors, 

Down I beat the whole; 
The maidens I would steal, 

The maidens stole, 
And her who spoke I sung, 

And to my bosom wound 
All amid the figs 

And fig-trees round. 

In memory of this exploit Goesto Ansur and his descendants arc 
named the Figueiredos, and assume upon their shield five fig leaves 
for five of the fair ones, and the sixth is represented by their crest — 
a fig-leaf also. 

31. 
u What ho ! " and th y knight of honour shakes his glove. 

Par. iv. line 29. 

Ere commencement of the Tourney the ladies always chose a 
knight, styled the knight of honour, and gave him a glove, which 
he held on a wand, called the ladies 1 wand. He stood in some con- 
spicuous place, and stopped the combat whenever he pleased, by 
lowering the wand. He here lowers it in order that the two re- 
maining champions should, as was usual, end the Tournament with 
a joust in honour of the ladies, 



NOTES. 199 

32. 
Swore by the pheasant and our good lady. 

Par. iv. line 47. 

The peacock and the pheasant were very distinguished in the 
spectacles of chivalry. A mantle of their feathers was in a myste- 
rious esteem, and the chief of the Troubadours was crowned with 
their plumage. But the vow made upon those birds was the most 
extraordinary ceremony. St. Pelaie gives an interesting account of 
one, at the court of Burgund} r , for the purpose of stirring up a new 
crusade. 

After a pompous banquet the King-at-arms of the golden-fleece, 
preceded by a long file of officers at arms, and carrying on his head 
a pheasant alive, which was ornamented with a golden collar, pearls, 
and precious stones, advanced towards the Duke of Burgundy* and 
offered him the bird. The duke, having listened attentively to the 
king at arms, placed his hand upon the pheasant's head, pronounced 
his vow, and then wrote it on a parchment, and it was read aloud. 
It began thus: — " I vow to God my Creator, and to the glorious 
Virgin, his mother, and after these, to the ladies and the pheasant, 
See." 

33. 

Neither doth he heed 

His atentayle ; 

Par. iv. line 53. 

It was, naturally enough, esteemed a valorous feat to be able to 
endure long that immense iron pot, the helmet ; particularly with- 
out raising the visor, or aventayle. Thus in the tale of " Tliree 
knights and the shift ;" — " Who is the gentle bachelor born amid 
swords, suckled in a helmet, rocked on a shield, fed with the flesh Of 
lions ? In quest of adventures he will pass the English seas, or climb 
the summit of Mount Jura. His enemies fly before him like 
straw before the wind. He overturns at the first joust horse 
and horseman ; he often too wounds thorn in spite of his armour. So 



200 NOTEtf. 

long can he support the helmet that he sleeps in it: it is unto him 
as a pillow."* Here we see the occasionally wounding his foe 
enumerated" among the wonders of this redoubted knight. In fact, 
the plate armour became at last so perfect a defence, that battles 
were won and lost without the shedding of blood. A Cavalier un- 
horsed lay immovable as a turtle upon his back, and was therefore 
a prisoner unto the victors ; but he was totally unassailable by any 
knightly weapon. Thus Froissart tells of some Flemish knights, 
whom the Genoese archers attempted to put to death ; but not a 
crevice could be found to introduce the point of a dagger, although 
they were rolled about and all the joints of their armour tried : — so 
that sledges were sought for, to beat them into pieces. Death to 
such warrior ensued more frequently from suffocation than any 
thing else. In the duel between Annesly and Kattrington, the latter 
expires without having received a scratch. 

34. 
Ho ! largess, largess I— from his saddle-bom 
Dips in a trice that gentle knight belozv — 

Regains the glove, rises 

Par. iv. line 67* 

Largess, largess! was the cry at any distinguished feat of arms 5 
and surely the lifting up of a glove from the ground in the manner 
described, with steel at all points and in a gallop, was no easy one, 
Jt was, however, a performance of many celebrated riders : and I 



* " S'abat cheval et chevalier 
Et souvent le crieve par force : 
Et puet tant le h'eaume endurer, 
Qu'a dormir ne a sommeiller 
Ne li coiwient autre Oreiller." 

Fabliaux ( Le Grand) I. J . p. 162, 



not£s. 201 

liavenow before me Galvam's Art of Horsemanship, wherein it is 
treated of in a separate chapter, and elucidated by a drawing. 
" Esta cavallaria," says the author, " tern grande servicopara c ca- 
valleiro tomar do chao as armas e mais cousas sem se descer, e mel- 
hor se defender pelejando," 

35. 
His modest hearing, and his gentle tone. 

Par. v. line 10, 

The courteous humility and gentleness of chivalry was an en- 
gaging feature. What is more gratifying than the picture drawn 
by Froissart of our Black Prince, who, at so young an age, had been 
the hero of the proudest fields Britain ever won?* 

It required a more than common education to prepare the mind 
to receive all that followed success at a Tournament, without being 
puffed up. But modesty was the reigning character : like the Che- 
valier Ba) ard, who, after his victory in Piedmont, said, " the honour 
he had gained was solely owing to the sleeve which a lady had given 
him," . 

36. 
The hand that dares, what none besides shall dare, 

Had thinrfd that woven beard, . 

Par. vi. line 5. 

The Cid was ever remarkable for a long beard, which he wore 



* " He made obeissance to his royal prisoner, attended at his 
table with every mark of humility, and would not sit down to it in 
spite of all his intreaties for him so to do, saying — that he was not 
worthy of such an honour, nor did it appertain to him to seat 
himself at the table of so great a king or so valiant a man, as he 
had shewn himself by his actions that day." 



202 NOTES. 

plaited and tied with a string over his shoulder. There seems to 
have been much veneration attached to this beard : so much so, 
that it stands recorded, how no mortal ever touched it. Seeing the 
Cid was a married man, I do not very well understand how that 
could be : such however is the story, and it is fully corroborated 
fcy what befel a Jew in the Cathedral of Toledo. 

Finding himself alone there, he advanced towards the body of the 
Cid — which for many years remained undecayed sitting in his ivory 
chair over against the great altar — and he said unto himself: — that 
is the good Rny Dias, whose beard no person ever touched; now 
that he is dead I think I may venture. The sacrilegious fingers 
were only approaching the Cid's blessed chin, when his right hand 
rising, half drew colada from the scabbard, upon which the wretch- 
ed Hebrew, as well he might, fell back with horror.* 



37. 
his country's tale of pride. 

Par. vi. line 1?. 



The verses following are intended as a glance at the early history 
of Spain : the settlement of Phoenicians — the Roman sovereignty 
— the irruption of northerns — the gothic kingdom — the Moorish oc- 
cupation of the land — the re-establishment of Christianity at Au- 
seva. By Xeres perished the flower of the Spanish nobility in 
eight days of battle. During the first seven, the King D. Kodrigo 
had been continually spiriting his troops, decorated as he was roy- 
ally, with a sceptre, a crown of gold upon his head, and on his feet 

* The Cid had been in progress to be canonized : but, from the 
failure of funds, or some other reason, the matter never went far- 
ther than his Beatification. This was a man who even in boyhood 
killed his adversary in a duel : and who, in the course of a long 
career, held the lives of his fellow creatures and of sparrows in 
pretty equal account. 



NOTE'S. 203 

sandals of golden tissue, sparkling with precious stones ; and lie 
was drawn in a car of ivory, according to the mode of Gothic mo- 
narchs : but, on the last day he had mounted his beautiful charger, 
Orelia, and flung himself into the hostile squadrons, to regain the 
field or die. Whether he did so die was never ascertained, although 
many fables went : such as his having been guided for several days 
by a milk-white cloud, and his having at last settled on a high soli- 
tary mountain, where, after a long time of penance, he finished his 
devotions rather oddly — by burying himself alive, with a snake, 
which he had reared for that purpose. — What in truth became of 
him is unknown : but his regal insignia were found on the banks 
of the Guadelete, and many years afterwards an antique stone was 
discovered in the vicinity of Viseu with this inscription: — Hie re- 
quiescit Rudericus Ultimus Rex Gothorum.* 

The hopes of Spain now rested on D. Pelayo, who had made hiB 
escape into the Asturias, where he inhabited a small cave. A few 
hundred followers soon collected round him ; and, upon the ridgs 
of Diva's hoarse torrent he was proclaimed king with all the gothic 
ceremonies. Having performed- a vigil of arms, and several reli- 
gious rites, he was finally placed standing upon the shield he had 
so often wielded in battle, and so was raised aloft by his " rich 
men" and other nobles, with loud shouts of Real, Real, Real for the 
King Don Pelayo. He then threw money to the people, and belted 
his sword upon his thigh, thereby intimating, that this earth held no 
one meet to do so for him : and, on the day of his being " raised 
King, 17 no Hidalgo in his dominions could be armed a knight. 



* Of the small numbers that escaped from Xeres, some made 
for the sea ; where they embarked and took refuge in an island, off 
the western coast of Portugal, since called The Forgotten Island 
Although it be laid down in some antique Charts, and former navi- 
gators describe it as " rich and well cultivated, with seven bi- 
shoprics, and the best and happiest people in the world," yet no one 
has of late years been able to rediscover it. 



204- NOTES. 

Scarce was the ceremony over, when the Moorish Allans were 
distinctly heard, and in a few moments the enemy was fronting the 
mouth of the cave. With the respect due from one brave man unto 
another, the General Alchaman solicited Pelayo to surrender, pro- 
mising him riches and honours as he could desire, and representing 
the impossibility of resisting an army, with a handful of old men 
and boys only. — A. short space rectified the mistake: seventy 
thousand of the Pagans perished by Christian valour, and seventy 
three thousand were overwhelmed by the mountains, which, as God 
directed, took no trivial part in the combat. Three thousand Moors, 
in fine, were permitted to escape, as witnesses to the miraculous vic- 
tory of Auseva. 

38. 

and there to ere of those> 

Who starved thee, slave I 



Par. vi. line 51. 

The Cid alludes to the scurvy conduct of the Infantes of Carrion, 
to whom he had married his daughters and lent his swords Colada 
and Tizona. He got back his daughters ; but, to regain his swords, 
a more consequential affair, the Cortes of the kingdom were con- 
voked. There the monarch presided in state ; and the Cid's state 
was scarcely inferior, in his ivory chair, with his hundred knights of 
honour. Ample justice was done, by restoration of the celebrated 
blades, and utter discomfiture of the Infantes, who above all were 
disgraced in the duel, with which the business terminated. 

With regard to the horse JBavieca, known both to history and to 
romance, he was bred on the banks of the Mondego — " nos sua- 
dosos campos do Mondego" — according to the Portugese chroni- 
clers. 



NOTES. 205 



39. 
Glory f tti son o* tK brave !- 



Par. vii. line 31, 



It was a usual plaudit : for, according to the maxims of chivalry, 
no one could be judged a truly brave man, until after his decease, 

40. 
She was his queen— from her he craves the meed. 
Touching her rosy lip — so chivalry decreed. 

Par. vii. line 32. 

" Le prix accorde— writes Mons. Le Grand—" au plus brave, 
d'apres le suffrage reuni des Princes, des Dames, des Herauts, et 
des Juges, et presentt avec un baiser, par la Reine du Tournois, le 
Vainqueur reconduit aux ciis du peuple et au son des instruments, 
desarme par les Dames les plus qualifiees, mangeant a la table da 
Roi, son nom celebre par des Chansons et inscrit sur les regitres 
des officiers d'armes, &c. — In fact this kiss, to which the victor had 
a right, was esteemed the brightest reward. 

" It was found that Mons. de Charolois had the best deserved," 
writes de Couci, " Then the officers at arms led two ladies, who 
were both princesses, to deliver the prize to the said Lord de Cha- 
rolois, who kissed them, as was the custom to do, and as is the law 
of knighthood." 

Such was the brilliant Tournament * not less dear to our fore- 



* The Tourneys, always more or less dangerous, were sometimes 
very bloody ; hence the Pope had preferred many a bull against 
them. But neither bulls nor excommunications, on other matters 
omnipotent, were availing here, and Rome at last knocked under. 
The accidents, however, were on some occasions so dreadful, and 
principally the death of the King of France, that the Pope again 



206 NOTES. 

fathers than the Olympic games were to the Greeks: yet among 
these a father expired with joy on beholding his son the victor. But 
men wax wiser in their generations, and we can laugh to scorn 
Henrys, Edwards, Bayards, and them all, when they become such 
triflers. 

41. 
True liege-men love the honour as their life. 

Par. x. line 1G. 

Chivalry, which introduces so noble an equality among gentle- 
men, by creating a certain contempt of wealth and curbing the in- 
solence of rude power, had but little influence on the lower classes. 
These remained about as miserable as the Russian boors of the pre- 
sent day. — All the world know what were the privileges assumed 
by the lords, and even the ecclesiastics of Scotland : similar were 
the usages of Spain. 

In the " Assizes of Jerusalem' 7 the nobleman is prohibited from 
interfering with the daughter of his vassal ; but not a word is said 
cf the vassal's wife: she was at the disposal of her husband's lord. 
But the lady and her daughter were equally protected, and the vas- 
sal dared on no account aspire to either of them, nor to his master's 
sister; on the contrary, he was bound to defend them by evcry^ 
means in his power. In fact, the law in favour of the vassal's 
daughter seems to have sprung less from tenderness of her re- 
puted father's feelings, than from the contemplation of her being, 
probably, partly noble. Of this the slightest suspicion was sufficient 
to secure to her respect, until all became forfeited by marriage with 
a Serf, or even the richest villain.* 

ventured with his anathema, and public opinion yielded. Tourna- 
ments were then laid aside, after having been for more than six 
centuries the chief glory and ornament of the whole civilized world. 
* " Sc il" — the noble — " gi charncllement a safille ou la requerre 
de folic ou seuffie ou consent que autre li face il ment sa foi vers 
lui." Ass. de Jer. ch. 217. 



NOTES. 207 

42. 

■ 'thwart the Moslem-van 

A chain, with massive fangs of iron, ran. 

Par. x. line 27. 

Mariana describes this Mahometan mode of defence in the bat- 
tle of Toledo : it was also practised by Miramolin, the Green Emir 
of Africa, at Tolosa. In consequence of the King of Navarre hav- 
ing broken the chain on this latter occasion, chains form the royal 
arms of Navarre. 

43. 
Was heard the Trouveur's tale, fyc. 

Par. xv. line 6. 

Trouveurs and Troubadours seem to be sometimes used by us 
synonimously ; but their language was as different as their coun- 
tries. The former were composers of tales and romances princi- 
pally, and they flourished in Brittany, Normandy, France proper, 
and in England, after the conquest : the Troubadours were southerns, 
and their compositions almost exclusively songs. These boast the 
honour of having given rise to Italian poetry, and Petrarch and 
Dante had their masters in Provence. In Spain, Trouveurs and 
Troubadours were each well known and held in high request : — 



M Nul Vassal ne doit a la feme de son Seigneur ne a set fille re- 
querre vilainie de son corps, ne seuffrir ne consentir a son essientne 
a son pooir que autre li fasse : ne a sa Soeur tant com elle est De- 
moiselle en son hostel." — Chap. 205. — Yet the assizes of Jerusalem 
were an improvement of the feudal code, were drawn up by most 
Christian Godfrey, solemnly approved of by the church, authen- 
ticated, each page, by the patriarch's signature, and religiously pre- 
served in the archives of the holy sepulchre. 



208 NOTES, 

as were also the Arabian fablers, introduced by the Caliphs— and 
who were, perhaps, the original inventors of romance. 

Richard, Cueur-de-Lion, is improperly classed among Trouba- 
dours ; it is more than probable, he did not understand a word of 
Provencal. He wrote in French, or " Romane" tongue, and both 
he and his minstrel Blondel were truly Trouveurs. 

44. 
And Biscay fisher s 

Par. xv. line 80* 

Let it be recollected, that the earliest whale fishers in the north 
were carried on by the inhabitants of Biscay. 

45. 
Bled in his goblet? poiz'd his blazoned shield? 

Par. xvii. line 10. 

The " Brotherhoods in arms" were contracted by a religious tow, 
and impressed by many solemn ceremonies — such as an exchange 
of shields, and each knight having a Tein breathed, that both their 
Mood might mingle in the same cup. Every thing was in common 
between brethren in arms ; even love was to yield to friendship : 
only loyalty was superior to a link so sacred. When our Edward 
meditated his expedition against France, he created his order of 
the round table, in hopes of alluring the French warriors to his 
cause. But those brave knights, \* ell aware of the true duties of 
profession, preserved their loyalty inviolate, " and thus the monarch 
beheld, in the succeeding war, his brethren in arms arrayed," says 
Rapin, " against him." The separation of Carvalai and Du Gues- 
elin in Castile, upon a similar occasion, is interestingly pictured : — 
" Adonc basiercnt li uns l'autre— moult fut pitieuse la departie," 



NOTES. 209 

46. 
To hail bright battle on his Syrian plain. 

Par. xvii. line 36. 

It is very true, that few Spaniards were in the wars of Palestine ; 
they had a full meal of crusading at home. There were, however, 
some, who accompanied Raimond of Toulouse on the first crusade, 
and notably, Bernard, Archbishop of Toledo, and the good Egas 
Moniz, uncle to our Moniz. There is, however, Fernando Lopez, 
who asserts positively, that Alfonso VI. had himself sent forces to 
Holy-land, and that their leader, the Count D. Henriquez, was 
named by Pope Urban one of the twelve captains of the ex- 
pedition.* 

Nothing was more common throughout Europe, than a journey 
beyond sea for a year and a day — the usual duration of the chival- 
rous adventures. 

47. 
Again, though faintly, Scotland's highland's peer. 

Par. xxiv. line 1. 

We were now,-it is supposed, in Scotland, in Lanarkshire. 



* Certainly neither Fleury in his Ecclesiastical History, nor the 
author of the Spirit of the Crusades, mentions a word of this cap- 
tainship : but when Monsieur La Clede would prove its impossi- 
bility, " because D. Alfonso, the count's son, was born in 1094, and 
Jerusalem taken by the Crusades, in 1092," I do not know how he 
could commit such an error. Jerusalem was taken in 1099. As 
to the birth of D. Alfonso then, it might have been in 1094, and 
yet in Spain : but neither is by any means certain. Barbosa brings 
forth D. Alfonso in 1109; the Gothic Chronicle only in 1111; and 
some contend, that he saw light in Palestine, and was baptized by 
Egas Moniz in the river Jordan. (See La Clede, liv. v. p. 36 — 7.) 

p 



210 NOTES. 

48. 

The snow-white elephant • 

Par. xxv. line 20. 

* L'Elephant blanc, ou le premier elephant du Roi de Siam, est 
servi par plusieurs Mandarins et par cent esclaves dans uh pavil* 
lion dont les larabris sont dores. Deux bassins d r or massife lui 
servent d'auges. Cet elephant avait cause plusieurs guerres entre 
1'etatdeSiam, et les puissances Voisines." (H. Mod. de Maury, 
t. ii. p. 232.) 

49. 
he bore 



His slow hand from his side ; that hand zvas batlHd in gore I 

Par. xxv. line 100. 

Two French gentlemen were losing at play ; one gave vent to 
all his feeling, in such a volley of imprecations, as is not unfrequent 
at the gaming-table, and cried to the other :— " How can you sit 
there so quietly? You are losing like myself, and you do not curse." 
That other turned round his head slowly, and, opening his waist- 
coat, drew forth his hand a little, " le diable n'en rien perd," said 
he : his hand and side were all in blood. 

50. 
Arid th* azure rings Janazio won of old. 
With English Arthur and his barons bold. 

Par. xxvi. line 30. 

All the Castros bear rings for their arms — thirteen, nine, or six." 
These latter, as some will have it, are only marks of cadency, and 
the thirteen rings distinguish the elder branch of the family. Such 
genealogists deduce the origin of the Castros from Janazio the 



NOTES. 211 

brave, one of our King Arthur's knights of the round table. That 
valorous captain received from Arthur himself his device of rings, 
representing the round table by their figure, and, by their number, 
King Arthur with his twelve knights companions, in honour of the 
twelve apostles. 

" Besants, money struck at Bvsantium. Though properly of 
gold, they are represented of all colours," says the View of 
Heraldry.* Surely this is a mistake. The besant is always gold, 
(yellow,) or silver (white,) and where a figure of its shape is to be 
found, not metal, such is truly no besant, but a ring, arruela, or 
tortao, in French torteau.f 

The Castros of the thirteen rings bear — in gold, thirteen of these 
arruelas, or rings azure : crest, a half-lion of gold, armed in azure, 
with the rings of the arms on the shoulder. 



51. 
-The pictures smiVd. 

Par. xxvi. line 51. 



Let the reader smile too if he please : but let him recollect many 
such relations by grave historians. Let him also know, that in the 
nineteenth century the features of many pictures at Rome were 
seen to move, and their eyes to roll up and down, to right and left. 
Yea! and the whole was recorded in a big book, with ten or 
twenty explanatory plates, and it was translated into English and 
the other modern tongues, and it is still circulating throughout 
Europe. 



* Chap. ii. p. 83. 
f " Arruelas sao sempre de cor por diil'erenca, dos Besantes que 

sao de metal Besantes sao semelhantes a mocJas de ouro 

ou prata sem cunho." Brazao, liv. iii. 

v 2 



212 &OT.ES. 

52. 

Their zcay was sacred !- 



Par. xxix. line 6. 

The sacred way, " la voie, sacree," was the usual form of speech 
m speaking of the voyage beyond sea, or crusade to Palestine; 
And surely that sacred way presented a curious spectacle — kings- 
princes, boors, clergy, gentry, women, children, pell-mell as they 
could go. Every link was broken; fathers, mothers, husbands, 
sons, brothers, wives, were quitted and abjured joyfully. All in- 
terests were sacrificed — all calls of blood, of conjugal tenderness, 
of love, of friendship, were rejected — every tender sentiment was 
stifled, and all those connexions crashed, which, until then, had 
appeared so indestructible. On they went, warriors, robbers, 
priests, and murderers ; the bishop in his purple, the cowled monk, 
the serf, lawyer, knight, hermit, and shameless female, sheathed in 
steel, and prepared by turns for the combat and for prostitution. 
All ranks, sexes, and passions, were let loose j piety, debauchery* 
the pure nobility with the vilest rabble, the casque, the gown, the 
censer, the lance, haircloths, disciplines, cross-bows, swords, and a 
crowd of nuns, who had burst their cloisters, and some of whom 
were reserved for strange adventures — " des aventures qui s'ac* 
commodoient bien mal avcc leurs veux." (L'Esprit dcs 
Crois. t. 3.) 



NOTES TO CANTO III 



53. 
From far Batalha, there zee linger' d much, 
You blush? d to think how Frenchmen could he sucji. 

Par. 1. line 36. 

This exquisite specimen of architecture is known to every Eng- 
lishman, by Mr, Murphy's drawings, It has sadly suffered. A 
most civilized nation, and one endeared to so many ancient and* 
most honourable recollections—dear to Britain, sometimes as a 
friend, but oftener as a rival, she was proud of — why must I at- 
tribute to that nation, destruction so wanton, so barbarous? Ba- 
talha is little better than a heap of ruins — Alcobac,a is no more. 

Massena, it is said, sent express orders to burn them both to the 
ground, and two companies of soldiers were so employed at Al- 
cobaca. Twenty six days did the work of mischief continue ; yet 
so massive, so city-like was that pile of eight centuries, that a part 
of the church still exists, and a few of the ancient monuments, al- 
though greatly broken. The excuse for this outrage was the 
monks' known hostility to the invaders, and their flight to Lisbon. 
Yet, if in former visitations they had lost all their property — and I 
would record an anecdote, which ought to make more than one 
general blush — if, moreover, a price had been put upon their heads, 
they surely had reason to fly. They saved nothing but their heads, 
and, to their honour be it told, their library.* 

* 1 must not forget this library. Mr. Murphy, in a very un- 
wonted vein of jocularity, doth remark, that there were probably 
more pipes of wine in the cellar, than books in the convent. That 
the wine was very plentiful, and sufficiently good, I have no doubt ; 



214 NOTES. 

They are the poor and mendicant friars, that are the curse of 
Portugal. Grovelling in sloth and the grossest ignorance, they are 
perhaps as profligate as ignorant, [and are ruinous, in a. double 
sense, by withdrawing from the soil the arms born to till it, and 
for all the means, but most necessary occupations, of life, and then 
supporting them upon the labour of others."* Nor is this all : they 
are not only the drones and leeches of their country, but, while 
they suck its dearest blood, are infusing poison in its stead. For 
they live upon deception, and fright and fool a credulous, most un- 
educated people, into a multitude of base superstitions and ido- 
latry, It is not so with the parochial clergy — least of any with the 
richer religious orders : these arc almost capable, if they durst, of 
opposing the torrent of corruption. They have, however, little 
influence, where there is a besotted prince — a nobility, poor, igno- 
rant, proud of their ignorance — and a peasantry naturally amiable, 
but unenlightoned altogether, and who give their confidence to 
priests, low-born and stupid as themselves. I have spoken in the 
provinces with many Benardines, Benedictines, Augustines, who 
lamented the degradation of their country, and I have found them 
every where the best landlords in it. Drawn from the highest class, 
and better than the class from which they are drawn, because less 
poor and dependent, their idleness could not be so injurious to the 

I found it so : it is clear it was Mr. M's best acquaintance. For 
had the gentleman inquired, he must have learned, that the property 
of Alcobaca in printed volumes is very immense, and that its ma- 
nuscripts form, after the Torre de Tombo, the most ancient and nu- 
merous collection in the kingdom. As an artist, Mr. M — is above 
all praise of mine ; but, when leaving his delicate pencil, he under- 
akes to write travels, O Mr. M— ! Mr. M— ! the Lord deliver me 
from Mr. M— ! 

* Hence the importation of grain for eight months consumption 
out of twelve, in a country not half populated, and naturally the 
most fertile in Europe, and the employment of Gallegos, and other 
oreigners, to the amount of from forty to fifty thousand at least. 



NOTES. 215 

community — and they are not wholly idle. They read a little, and 
exert ? boundless hospitality, living like a society of private gen- 
tlemen, neither remarkable for vice, nor pretending to be much 
better than their neighbours. Precluded altogether from any ex- 
travagant expenditure, their funds are always in good order, and 
present to the prince his only sure resource. I am, in fine, convinced, 
that a reduction of the richer convents of Portugal, under its exist- 
ing government, would be the finai blow to that devoted land ; what 
little remains of agriculture,* revenue, and of all civilization, would 
vanish : the whole nation would beeome more and more corrupt, 
and an age of utter barbarity ensue. Such were the ideas of the 
Marquez de Pombal, and he had certainly builded on them- It 
was his ruin. 

What will become of the loveliest climate, the finest soil, and 
the best situated for commerce ? Time and chance, spite of a con- 
gress, are often masters : but assuredly become so, when a govern- 
ment is too feeble for decision. Brazil will probably be unlinked 
from its parent, either by detaining the family of Bragauza, or form- 
ing a republic, with the Americas of Spain. The situation of Por- 
tugal is more slippery. Yet, this much may be foreknown, that 
either to France, England, or even Spain, she would be an easy, 
but most dangerous acquisition ; and that she can never return to 
be a very independent state. 

54. 

nor, coasting France, 

Left umnhaiVd the Mother of Romance. 

Par. ii. line 1. 

" Most of our metrical romances are translated from the French," 
says Mr. Wharton. " The French," says Mr. Godwin, " have a 
just claim to priority over all the European nations, in the inven- 

* I know that lands, now producing scarcely any thing to the 
fidalgos possessing them, produced some years ago, when in the 
Ijriars' hands, one hundred fold. 



216 NOTES. 

tions of romances of chivalry, and the production of every species 
of offspring of the imagination," (Life of Chaucer, v. 2). ,-Dante 
calls French the * mother of romances, and of the fine deeds of the 
Trojans, and of King Arthur,' and Brunetto Latini preferred it to 
the Italian, " parcequc la parlure en est plus dclitable et commune 



55. 

" All father" 's lost with thee" 

Par. ii. line 12. 

AVhen we consider that the Count of Thoulouse, bore away to 
the first crusade, and from Provence alone, one hundred thousand 
combatants, with a multitude of women, children, old men, priests, 
&c. we are to be astonished, that any inhabitants were remaining. 
In fact, all France and Italy were reduced to a state of much deso- 
lation. Whether there arose a permanent good thence is another 
question ; but the immediate effect of the crusade was to depopu- 
late the fairest portion of Europe. 

There is some natural feeling in the manner those misfortunes 
are described in the " Sire de Crequi ;" and the pictures drawn of 
his wife's sorrow, and his child's remark on his return, are affecting : 

et Li Sire print sen fieus, en sies bras le preissoye 
Le joesne Demiziel foert bel enfain estoye 
Et disoy : chey dont vous que ma kiere dame Merfc 
Plouroye disant — tout eist per du avceuk vos peres." 

56. 

Immortal Rome ! 

Par. iii. line 1. 

Vice and luxury led on as usual to ruin, and the empire of Rome 
passed away. The fall of greatness is at all times awful ; but, upon 
the fall of Roman greatness, we dwell with not more solemnity 
than tenderness. The land of the Caesars and of Cicero, of Virgilr 



NOTES. 217 

Horace, Livy, is associated with many dear and youthful recollec- 
tions. Over its misfortunes we cannot but indulge a sigh;, even 
an honest indignation may mingle with our regret. Withal, let us 
not be unjust : the Romans were their own destroyers. " They 
had survived," says Mr. Gibbon, " the loss of virtue and of honour." 
It would have been a flattery to have ranked them with men, whom 
a courtly sycophancy designated as Barbarians. Nature acts 
kindly by her children : a people grow wicked, and grow weak 
together, and the period of consummate criminality is providentially 
the period of their downfall. 

The elevation of Augustus had been ruin to the commonwealth, 
and the empire dissolved with the death of Constantine. But not 
for this did Rome sink into oblivion ; and she may boast of a pecu- 
liar destiny in having escaped the neglect attendant on decayed 
power. To a teniperal succeeded a spiritual dominion, when the 
Vatican arose from the ruins of the capital. On this subject there 
will be a variety of ideas : but there is, I believe, no one .who 
would defend the despotism of the popes ; and they who most 
harshly censure it, will forgive it much, for whatever of wisdom, or 
of virtue, was achieved, when it checked the fury of an Attila, or 
restrained the ferocity of times that followed, when, in opposition 
to brutal force, it asserted the prerogatives of the mind, and finally 
restored to us the arts and letters. Erected of so flimsy a material 
as opinion, its danger was less from its instability. It was barba- 
rous too, if you will, inasmuch as it could have been formed only in 
a dark and barbarous age, and was certain to melt away as civili-* 
zation rose. Was it not, in fact, the fabric of circumstances, and 
distinct from the religion it indecently made its instrument ? Tt was 
indeed less the work of priests, and of the talents and ambition 
occasionally invested with the Tiara, than that of short-sighted 
princes, who, to compass some immediate, paltry end, nursed up an 
authority, shortly to trample on their own. The ecclesiastics, on 
the contrary, were at the beginning its stoutest opposers, and there 
is something interestingly plaintive in the tone, with which they 
sometimes sought to withstand its encroachments : but particularly 



218 NOTES. 

in that address, where, with the feelings of husbands and of fathers; 
they protest against the decree of celibacy ; " because they were 
not angels, but men." The clergy were, however, left to the Pope's 
mercy, and the law passed : which to them was an infringement 
of the rights of nature, and to all legitimate government, was a blow 
no sovereign ought ever to have permitted. The papal tyranny 
became at length so excessive, that no words can too severely re- 
probate it ; but, ere we confuse it with the religion of any time, let 
us recollect, that the countries most jealous of their reputation for 
exclusive orthodoxy, have been seen to oppose it always with suc- 
cess ; especially when their rulers had a grain of spirit. Such in- 
stances are to be found in every history. I will only notice one, 
and it is of the first years of the twelfth century, and among the 
most superstitious pope-ridden people in the universe — I mean the 
Portuguese. They call it the story of the black bishop and the 
cardinal. Its hero, however, is D. Alfonso Henriquez, the gallant 
soldier, proclaimed first King of Portugal, on the edge of battle. 
But what must have been the religious credulity of a character, 
who considered himself as an object of miraculous favours* from 
infancy? who engaged in a perilous war, and penetrated to the 
fatnesses of Algarve, in quest of the relics of a fabulous saint ? 
authenticated, he judged by a flock of rooks said to hover over 
them, and which relics by the bye he could not discover when he 
got there ! who seriously ascribed this disappointment to the 
saints having hidden his body, being unwilling to go to Braga, and 
preferring to wait for a conveyance to Lisbon ? who wrought him- 
self to a belief, that the Almighty in person had appeared to him 
in the field of Ourique ? who related a long and familiar conver- 
sation that there took place between them, and how the royal 
arms of Portugal were the invention of the Godhead ? who, in fine, 
not only credited and told all this, but transmitted it in an affidavit 
to posterity ! an affidavit taken before all the clergy and magnates 



* By the straightening of his legs. He had been bom bandy. 



NOTES. 219 

of his kingdom, and by the cross, and the mostholy gospels S* When 
a sovereign like this, and who had moreover made himself a vassal 
of the Roman see, could check that see when it would control his 
measures, we may judge how the power of the popedom grew, 

This D. Alfonso had been obliged, for the safety of his crown, to 
adopt harshness to his mother — a very dangerous, abandoned wo- 
man. She, however, by her intrigues, and those of her favourite, 
obtained, that the Pope should send the Bishop of Coimbra, then 
at Rome, with an order for her release. Upon the bishop's ar- 
rival, D. Alfonso inquired, what authority had the Pope to interfere 
with his sovereignty? " Be assured,'' said he, " that in this I will 
not obey either his holiness, or any other man on earth." Imme- 
diately the king and kingdom were laid under interdict, and the 
bishop fled. Informed of this D. Alfonso walked to the cathedral, 
where he ordered the canons to assemble, and elect a new bishop ; 
but, upon their demur, they were put out of doors, and he said 
he would himself procure one. Whereupon going down the clois- 
ters, he espied a black priest, and having inquired his name, and 
as to whether he was a good clergy man* he learnt that there was 
not a better in Spain : — " D. Solomon," cried the king, u thou 
shalt be bishop, and I command thee to say mass as such without 
delay." — " That cannot be, sire,'- answered the negro, " for I have 
not been ordained bishop." — " I have ordained thee bishop," re- 
turned the monarch, " so put on thy vestments, or I will cut thy 
head off with this good sword." 

When these transactions were noised at Rome, D. Alfonso was 
presently adjudged to be a heretic, and a cardinal was sarcastically 



* " Ego Alfonsus Portugalliae Rex, &c. — Coram vobis doiu> 
Viris Episcopo Bracharensi et Epis : Colimbriensi et Theotonio 
reliquisq : magnatibus officialibus Vassalis Rcgni mei in hac cruce 
aerea et in hoc libro sanctissimorum evangcliorum juro cum tactu 
manmun mcarum quod Ego miser peccator vidi his-ce oculis in- 
jlignis verum Dominum mostruni Jcsum Christum," &c. &c. 



220 NOTES 

sept " to instruct the King of Portugal in the faith." Upon this 
persons drawing near Coimbra, the Portugese fidalgos said to their 
king : — " Sire, here comes to you a cardinal of Rome from the Pope, 
who is displeased with you for having made a bishop, and he has 
received great honour in every part he passed through, and all the 
kings have kissed his hand." — " Let him take more care with me," 
replied D. Alfonso. " I know not the cardinal nor the Pope, who 
coming to Coimbra, and stretching out his hand for me to kiss here, 
in my own house, shall not have both hand and arm cut from the 
shoulder with this sword : and this he cannot escape." Upon en- 
tering the city, the cardinal was told those words, and he felt much 
fear thereat ; and the king did not go out to meet him, and the 
cardinal took it as a bad sign. He nevertheless went presently to 
the palace, and the monarch received him with — " Cardinal, why 
have you come to my land? or what riches do you bring me for all 
these wars I carry on day and night against Moors ? If by venture 
you bring any thing to give me, give it ; and, if not, return as you 
came." — " Sire," said the cardinal, " I am come from the holy 
Father to teach you the faith of Christ, which, he is informed, you 
do not understand." — " Certainly," rejoined the sovereign, " wo 
have the same books of faith here that you have at Rome, and well 
we know the articles of faith ;" and upon tins he repeated all the 
articles, word for word, as they were written, with their explanat- 
ions, and " then he believed, and would, please God, continue to 
believe as firmly as the Pope himself."* Returning to his inn, the 
cardinal ordered barley to his beasts, and at midnight summoned 



* On such subjects, indeed, D. Alfonso appears to have been 
particularly sore ; since we find him at Ouriquc, assuring God Of 
his perfect orthodoxy, and suggesting the greater propriety of ma- 
nifesting himself to the Moor, who seeing might perhaps believe H* 
" Dixique nihil turbatus, Quid tu ad me Domine ? Credenti enim 
xh fidem augere ? Melius ut te videant infideles et credant quam 
Ego, &c. 



notes; 221 

the clergy to the place, and in their presence excommunicated the 
whole of Portugal, and mounting his animal rode off. Before day- 
break he had made two leagues. 

Up rose the king, and said to his fidalgos — " Come with us, we are 
going to return the cardinal's visit." But upon their telling him, 
that the cardinal Mas already gone, and had left the kingdom ex- 
communicated, he called in great indignation to have his horse sad- 
dled ; and, buckling on his sword, made such haste, that he over- 
took the culprit near Poyares. Riding at bim, he caught hi 
with one hand by the collar, and with the other drew his sword— 
" Give me here thy head, traitor." But upon intercession of his 
fidalgos who came up, he desisted, only ordering the cardinal to 
undo all he had done ; for, if not, his head should never leave that 
spot. The terrified man yielded, protesting, that if they would not 
hurt him, he was ready to perform every thing that could be de- 
sired. " What I desire is, that forthwith you dis-excommunicate 
as much as you have excommunicated, and that you leave behind 
you all your gold and silver, and beasts, and that you send me from 
Rome a bull, promising that Portugal shall never be excommuni- 
cated, which I conquered with my sword. And you shall give me 
tins nephew of yours here in pledge, until the bull's arrival, and if 
it arrive not before four months, I shall take off Ins head. That I 
am a heretic is evident from these marks, that I received in such a 
battle, and these in such a city, and these in such a town, that I 
took all — for the service of God and against enemies of our faith : 
and, to carry on the warfare in future, I take from you this gold and 
silver, and these beasts, of which I am much in want." So he took 
all the gold and silver, and all the horses and mules excepting three ; 
" and now, cardinal, you may continue your journey ; it is the favour 
I require of you." 

Gteatly was the Pope offended at promise of the above mention- 
ed bull, and he asked how any one could presume to stipulate for 
a favour, which only the apostolic see could grant? *' Ah ! holy fa- 
ther," replied the cardinal, " I only say that, were the chair of St. 
Peter mine, I would most willingly have yielded it, to escape from 



222 



NOTES. 



his hands. And you, too, if you had seen coming upon you a cava- 
lier, strong and furious as that king, and if he had one hand at your 
collar, and the other out-stretched to cut off your head, with his 
horse not less ungovernable than himself, and now with this hoof, 
now with that, scraping in the earth as if he were digging your 
grave — indeed, holy father, you also would have given up both bull 
and popedom." 

Upon this, the pope wrote a bull, as the cardinal directed ; and 
the cardinal dispatched it to Portugal before the expiration of 
four months ; and the king sent back the cardinal's nephew very 
honourably, and with many presents out of the privy-purse ; and 
the cardinal was evermore a great friend of the king; and he did 
every thing the king applied for in Rome ; and engaged the Pope 
to expedite another bull, granting to the king full authority for 
making bishops and archbishops within his own dominions, as he 
might choose. 

57. 
Wild " arm-of-iron 1 — English u cut-tJie-steel,'' 
Franks, Lombard barons, Grecians, Turks, and he 
Who saw the" White-Knight" ride in Sicily. 

Par. iii. line 3&. 

" Fier-a-bras," " Bras-de-fer," " TaiJle fer." Such was some of the 
barbarous appellations of the day. " Rogerthe Norman' 7 was the wor- 
thy, to whose succour the miraculous " white-knight" came; whom 
Roger, properly enough, set down to be St. James or St. January, 
I forget which. In fact, the miserable scene of confusion presented 
for several centuries in Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, &c. is too shocking to 
look back to. As for the Normans, those religious brigands, we 
have them described by Leo IX. in colours more frightful than 
Huns, or Ostrogoths: "That strange and undisciplined nation, 
the Normans, destroys every thing with a rage and cruelty unheard 
of, and a worse than heathen impiety against the church of God. 
Not a sentiment of humanity belongs to the barbarians, who spare 



NOTES. 223 

neither sex, nor weakness, nor old men, nor children; but mas- 
sacre every creature falling into their hands, with tortures horrible as 
they are novel. Profaners of the most sacred rights, they go on in 
such a hardihood of vice, that each day adds crime to crime, enor- 
mity to enormity. 

58. 
He, pious hero, on his lofty poop 
Gathered sweet sleep. 

Par. iii. line 48* 

" iEneas celsa in puppi, jam certus eundi 
Carpebat Somnos." 

On such a subject something of repugnance may be allowed in 
a lady's mouth. To others, it will perhaps appear, that Virgil 
never more displayed an exquisite judgment than in this pasasge, 
where his hero is shewn to be so passive an instrument of the gods ; 
who alone could build the Roman empire : — " Tantse molis erat 
Romanam condere gentem." 

59. 
But soon more shines that feeble, feeble light. 

Par. iv. line 5. 

This is an attempt at imitating some of the strange apparitions 
of the day. 

60. 
Warning the khacan, more than mortal aid 
Baffled his Abars. 

Par. iv. line 22. 

The Abars, who, with their kan, or khacan, had invested Con* 
stantinople, under the Emperor Heraclius, after having threatened 



224 NOTES. 

an assault for many nights, raised the siege, and retired for ever. 
The reason did not fail to be recorded : each time, when the lad- 
ders were placed, and all were quite ready, there appeared a fe- 
male figure of majestic stature, and more brilliant than the sun, 
who walked round upon the walls, and drove back the assailants, 
with a terrible frown. " At last/' write the Greeks, " the barba- 
rians made off, seeing the blessed virgin of the Christians had de- 
clared against them," 

61. 

the battle-strain 

At Roncesvalles heard, and once again 
Where Norman William left the Saxon slain. 

Par. iv. line G6. 

The song or dirge of Roncesvalles was performed at the battle of 
Hastings, when " Cut-thc- Steel," William's first minstrel on the 
occasion, went chanting it a-horseback in front of the armj.* 

62. 
But, far above them all, from land to sea, 
Is Lusia's boast, th' unmatched Arabida. 

Par. v. line 20. 

Arabida is a solitary convent, not far from Setubaf, or St. Ubes, 
as we murder the name in English. The verses convey a very- 
poor idea of one of the most interesting scenes imaginable. When 



* " Taille-fer, qui moult bien chantoit, 
Sur un cheval qui tost alloit 
Devant eus alloit chantant 
De PAllemagne, et de Rollant, 
Et d'Olivier, et de Vassaux 
Qui mounuent en Rains chevaux/' 
(Du Cange Gloss.) 



NOTES- 225 

1 visited it, it appeared in all the sublimity of seclusion : not a 
whisper was to be heard — not a breeze moved the light leaves of 
the cork tree — the eterual cypress was as still as the death it com- 
memorates : not a bird — not an insect stirred. When from a little 
above the convent you cast your eyes around that magnificent 
range of scenery — shrubs, rocks, white-walls, trees to the very 
sky — it seemed some stupendous theatre, with a blazing mirror for 
its drop-scene ; so unrippled quite, so insufferably brilliant, lay the 
sea before you. Nature in her most wrathful mood, never was, in 
my view, more awful, than in the grandeur and quiet of that lonely 
spot. You felt as if there was not another living creature in the 
universe ; it was a feeling, not of admiration, not of content, but 
of proud, irresistible, terrible delight: it recalled forcibly Cowper's 
lines, " I am monarch of all I survey," &c. In three visits to 
Arabida, it was always the same. I have sat for hours upon a 
rock, amid stillness the most profound ; nor — with the exception 
of once that I entered the convent — do I remember ever to have 
heard other sound there, than very infrequently the tolling of a 
small bell. 

63. 

From tide-swept Troy a—" 

Par. v. line 22. 

Opposite to Setubal is the site of ancient Troya.* This town 



* But Brito says otherwise, holding that the ancient Setubal was 
destroyed by the Moors, and stood on the spot now called Troya — 
which latter name is mere invention of the fishermen upon the 
coast. This ancient Setubal was, according to him, the first 
erected city in the Peninsula ; being founded by Tubal, shortly 
after the deluge, while Noah reigned in Italy. This honour, how- 
ever, is contested by Terragona, Tudela, Biscay, and, indeed, by 
almost every province and sea-port in Spain. Knotty and right 

Q 



226 NOTES. 

was overwhelmed iu an earthquake. It presents at present a bank 
of sand, where medal hunters may scratch, not uuprofitably, 

64. 
The round white chapels 



Par. v. line 32. 

These white chapels are little octagon or circular towers, scat- 
tered on various projections of rock ; and, although larger, are not 
unlike the jutting turrets, so remarkable in some ?incient, or some 
modern-ancient architecture— as Hcrriet's hospital, near Edinburgh. 
They are called the " Convento velho," " old convent :" for al- 
though now occupied by some trumpery images only, they were 
once the real cells of the monks. It is of latter years that the King 
of Portugal founded the present habitation, a good deal lower down 
the mountain. The appearance of these white structures, peeping 
from amid the myrtles, laurel, gymsystus, arbutus, is exceedingly 
picturesque, and will catch the attention of every traveller. By 
travellers, however, Arabida is seldom visited; although I am in- 
clined to place it much superior to Cintra, or even Ponte de Lima. 

By the bye the arbutus, alway.s beautiful by the Lake of Killar- 
ney, or on Wicklow mountains, is in Portugal a shrub of far supe- 
rior beauty. Both the fruits and flowers grow to a fuller size ; the 
former, w r hen ripe, are by no means ungrateful : they are sold in the 
market in Lisbon, and are supposed by the peasantry to intoxicate 
presently. 

65. 
The Muncho's rock. 



Par. v. line 35, 



notable are the discussions with which Brito commenceth this his 
history of Portugal : he proveth, in teeth of the learned Septem- 
brisers, Lyra, Rabi, Eliazer and Zambuja, that the world began on 
Sunday, March 21st. 



-NOTES. 227 

There are many of these munchos or hermits around Arabida. 
They live in huts, and profess poverty, beards, and filth, the most 
revolting. Whatever might formerly have been their ascetic 
virtues, they bear no very good reputation now a-days. There was 
an Englishman, named Smith,* among them latterly. This fellow 
came a few years ago to Portugal, and, some how or other, contrived 
to make a noise by his pretended conversion from heresy. In fine, 
the prince assisted at his abjuration, and, convinced of his good 
faith, granted him a pension, and had a hermitage built for him 
near Arabida. This was to be sure no very splendid endowment, 
r,ince his pension, as I understood, amounted to about four-pence a 
day, and the hermitage which I have seen was nothing more than 
the most miserable of all possible cabins. The rascal lived in it 
about three years, not quietly. The monks all along complained 
of his seldom appearing at church, and he kept up correspondence 
with a pedlar of no very dubious reputation. He at last eloped, 
suspected of several robberies, and after having swindled various 
persons to a considerable amount of money :- for which ourmuncho 
left as pledges, half a dozen wives and children in different parts of 
the province. 

66. 

Day clos'd, and vespers 

Par. v. line 36. 

On my second journey to Arabida, I delayed until moonlight ; 
when I descended to the cave through a thicket of the most fra- 
grant shrubs. Then I first saw the fire-flies in perfection : they 
quite illuminated the path as they flew past. Towards the bottom 
you have some stairs cut in the stone, at the expense, as they told 
me, of an English gentleman, who had been there some years before. 
The cave itself is a stupendous dome, with a portico to the sea, 
supported by four petrified columns of prodigious dimensions. In 

* He had been condemned for felony at the Old Bailey. 

Q? 



228 NOTES. 

the interior they have erected a small chapel, where a lamp is al- 
ways burning ; but no one now inhabits there. It was a peaceful, 
but not silent scene: even then, the waves, for all they were so 
smooth, produced no slender echo. This cave in a storm must be 
surely one of the most terrific resorts in nature. 

67. 
The Muncho's Tale. • 



Par. v. line 51. 

This is not to be put wholly to the author's imagining, it is pretty 
exactly the legend of the convent. The Irish gentleman so mira- 
culously snatched from peril, built a little chapel for the image on 
its rock, and entering into himself, spent the remainder of his days 
in the cave in strict penance. Induced by his sanctity, disciples 
soon gathered around, when each one raising a cell apart, the 
** Convento velho" became formed. The ship's crew established 
themselves at Belem, and their descendants go annually in a pro- 
cession to Arabida, where three days are spent in feasting. The 
image still occupies her chapel ; but her only glory now remaining, 
is a full-bottomed flaxen wig, becomingly curled, greased, and 
powdered, an enormous hoop, and a robe of pea-green satin, em- 
brodercd with orange lilies. 

This " Nossa Scnora da Arabida," is of high celebrity in Portugal, 
and there is a muncho near the convent, who carries on a trafic, 
no doubt tolerably lucrative in a species of amulet, which, having 
touched the image, is to preserve the wearer from I know not what 
disasters by land and water. 

68. 
Slave of the slaves, who thirteen masters bore ! 

Par. vi. line 5. 

Asia has been called the " country of servitude." In early times 
it was thrice conquered by the Scythians, and has since been by 



NOTES. 229 

turns in possession of Medes, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, 
Moguls, Turks, Tartars, and others, whose barbarous names I can- 
not recollect. 

69. 
Raising the Diex-volt for their battle-whoop. 

Par. vi. line 8. 

" Dieu-le-veut," " God wills it ;" or in the jargon of the times, 
" Diex-le-volt," or " Deux lo volt." 

70. 
* Daphne's Castalie' ! 



Par. vi. line 10. 

This fount, of course not the poetic one, was celebrated through- 
out antiquity for its oracles. Adrian, who visited it in a sickness, 
dipped in its waters a leaf of laurel, which prophesied — perhaps oc- 
casioned his subsequent elevation to the empire. It is in the envi- 
rons of Antioch. 

71. 
Runs cold from strangers lawless as their war. 

Par. vi. line 11. 

I, once for all, repeat, that I give no opinion upon the justice or 
the policy of the Crusades. As to the atrocities committed during 
them, there can be but one mind : I might recount some, were they 
not calculated to chill the blood. It is, however, to be hoped, that 
never again, in holy or unholy war, any Christian princess will have 
to tell of ten thousand men living willingly upon human flesh, and 
esteeming no luxury more to their palate, than a fresh child spitted 
and drest before a slow fire.* 

* Alex. Liv. x. 



230 n6tes. 

72. 
pale famine - 



Par. vi. line 1&. 

Assuredly, those crusaders Were strange persons. Not an affair, 
but the three martyrs distinguished themselves in their ranks, and 
St. George was professedly their generalissimo, as he is this day of 
the Portuguese. Withal, no wretches ever endured more ; and 
whole armies were swept away by pestilence, distress, and famine. 
Men expecting, to be fed with manna, like the Israelites, or like 
Elijah in the desert, might consider any human precautions as un- 
necessary, perhaps impious : but why not have taken a commis- 
sariat from heaven, as well as their Etat major? Is it, that like the 
Americans,* they did not think of commissaries ? or is it, that this 
class of gentlemen were never in very heavenly repute ? 

73. 

Helen's deed of fear, 

When the sea-dragon watch'd in Satahj. 

Par. vi. line 23. 

A Levant story. This sea-dragon had for many years infested 
the coasts of Asia-minor; but was at last conquered by the Em- 
press Helen. That gallant lady sailed out to meet him, and, upon 
his appearing, conjured him away for ever, with the assistance 
of some relict ; I believe a nail of the cross. Previous to this 
achievement, no 3hip could navigate those seas in safety. 

74. 
Though sails — nor oars— -nor rudder, lent their aid. 

Par. t i. line 27. 

It was Lazarus and Mary Magdalen crossed the sea at Jaffa, in 
* Marshall's Life of Washington, v. ii. p. 247, 



NOTES. 231 

a boat without any of the above appendages. In the life of Leo 
IX. we read of an extraordinary little dog, who frequently ex- 
claimed De us meus ; and of a w r ell known cock at Benevento, that 
burst from its shell, crying Papa Leo, Papa Leo. 

75. 
And ''mid that rout was many a joyous dame. 

Par. vii. line 9. 

Of the multitudes* gone on the crusade, you may form some idea 
from the letter addressed by the bishops, who accompanied them 
to their brethren in Europe. It is dated 1097, and describes the 
expedition, after so many disasters, as still containing one hundred 
thousand knights (cavalry) besides an innumerable body of com- 
mon soldiers, (infantry). A reinforcement is however called for, 
and the bishops at home are desired to send as many men as pos- 
sible : but no more women. The manner of recruiting is thus 
pointed out : " in every house containing two people, one must take 
the cross ; whoever refuses, let him be anathematized, deprived of 
Christian burial, and undergo all the thunders of the church." That 
no more women were requisite, is not astonishing : but it is horrible 
to reflect on what numbers of them were already in the east, drink- 
ing to the dregs of every misery and vice. It would appear incre- 
dible to such as have not toiled through the disgusting chronicles 
of that period, and all who have will be well content that I go no 
further. 



* By none, they are held less than nine hundred thousand fight- 
ing men, and one author (Fulcher of Chartres, himself a crusader, 
and chaplain to Godfrey's brother), estimates the whole armies at 
six millions of souls. " Ere, reaching the numbers of the crusaders,*' 
writes Anna Comena, " you shall have counted the stars sparkling 
in the firmament, the grains of sand upon the sea-coast 7 tfefc leaves 
and flowers that appear in spring." 



23% NOTES. 

76. 
What griefs consumed them by the u Bad-Citye/' 

Par. vii. line 25. 

This < Bad-Citye,' " Malleville," for it is known by only that 
name in history, was somewhere in Hungary. To take this Chris- 
tian town, and cut the throats of all its inhabitants, was the earliest, 
indeed the only exploit of the first army of the crusaders. Tins 
was commanded by Peter, the hermit, the original preacher of the 
war. When Peter had appeared before Godfrey, " at the head of 
such a nameless horde without discipline, or the smallest morals," 
says the historian of the crusades ; " the prince was naturally ter- 
rified, since the least disaster it threatened, was immediate famine. 
Wherefore, it was requested, that this Canaille should precede by 
some months the more respectable crew; and they did so, having 
for Generals Peter, and his Lieutenant Gautier, pennyless" or 
" lack money f " Sine habere," " sans avoir." What must not have 
been the horrors perpetrated by such savages let loose in myriads 
upon Europe? — Neither did themselves escape. Destruction of 
every nature persecuted their march ; and when their sorry rem- 
nants approached Constantinople, the infidels would have commi- 
serated then plight. Alexis received them with the utmost pity, 
and intended to have detained them until arrival of the grand army. 
The barbarians, however, recovering their vices with their strength, 
even on the third day, began disorders ; and, being shortly after, re- 
inforced by some new hordes of robbers, set about plundering 
houses, churches, &c. and, after a general butchery of Jews, were 
seen butchering all to right and left, without distinction of rank or 
religion. If the hundreth part of A. Commena's narrative be true, 
the Almighty never permitted such a scourge before, or since , 
Hence, the Greek emperor was constrained to transport them be- 
yond the Bosphorus, when he would have acted justly in exter- 
minating them. So far from any such feeling, he gave them pro- 
visions and his best advice, that they should remain tranquil until: 
Godfrey's arrival* This was impossible to attend to, and Gautier- 



NOTES, 233 

pennyless — Peter seems to have been absent on some adventure — ■ 
led his army into a situation near Nice, where the Soldan cut them 
all to pieces. 

77. 
The Danes overthrow — the Grecian's perfidy. 

Par. vii. line 26. 

These were the Danes of whom Tasso writes, and who perished 
with their brave prince to a man. Not one escaped to bear the 
lamentable tale : the crusaders received it from their slayers. 

The perfidy of the Greek was a favourite declamation among 
the holy warriors. What proves this perfidy ! After having had his 
city sacked, his subjects slaughtered, his revenues wasted, his 
throne, and even his person insulted, when a low-bred ruffian sat 
Tauntingly by his side ; after having suffered more than all this 
from fellow-Christians and allies, Alexis treated them to the end 
with civility. 

78. 
In death more happy ; since their fragments zvhite 
Builded a wall, fyc. 

Par. vii. line 30. 

When Godfrey of Bouillon approached Nice, he visited the plaii, 
where G autier-pennyless had fallen. It was a melancholy seem of 
bones. These were afterwards gathered, and in a curious mode of 
warfare, erected into a wall, very serviceable during the siege. 
Like the Mahometans, the crusaders in general believed, that all 
dying in battle l won the palm of martyrdom/ however, enormous 
their iniquities. 

During the siege of Nice, one of the most dreadful weapons of 
the Saracens was an instrument called the i iron hands,' which 
clawed a knight body and bones to the top of the walls. The 
' White-lake' (Ac-sou) as it is now named by the Turks, was the 



234 NOTES. 

lake Ascanius. It washes the towers of Nice, (Js-Nik) and is es- 
teemed very full of wonders. 

79. 
Woe for the serpents of Eleutherie ! 

Pan vii. line 42, 

When the crusaders, expiring with thirst, drew near to the river 
Eleutheria (now the Yalana), they found it so guarded by serpents 
that they retired. But the most extraordinary thing about those 
4 fire-serpents/ was the cure for their bite ; which cure, if we believe 
Albert Canon, of Provence, could scarcely be wanting, where a 
lady and gentleman were together. Now this Mas a useful excuse, 
and well suited to the crusaders: but what occasion for flight? 
they might have bid defiance to a thousand Eleutherias. 

80. 
Woe for the Grecian fires that burn unquenchably ! 

Par. vii. line 44* 

The famous Greek-iire r uncxtinguishable by water, was unknown 
to the Latins, and the Greeks were prohibited by their most sacred 
;t\vs, from either making it themselves, or revealing the secret of 
its composition. The Saracens, notwithstanding, had become mas- 
ters of it, and it was the most frightful of their arms. 

81. 
'To flesh his spear, five hundred of the Turks 



Their ears and noses gave ! 



Par. vii. line 46. 



This was the celebrated Raimond of Tasso. He had brought 
his wife with him from Spain, and, with some noble qualities, was 
a great fanatic. A savage, one Peter of Roas, presented him 
vtith a lance, covered from one endto the other with the ears and 
noses of infidels he had slain. 



KoTfiS. 235 

82. 
When the young mother on her baby fed, 
And knighthood's heart a moment seem'd to die. 

Par. vii. line 50* 

Imagination may scarcely equal the sufferings the crusaders 
brought upon themselves by their intemperance and profligacy, par- 
ticularly at Antioch. They had destroyed, in a few days, what 
provisions might have lasted them for months, and a famine sue* 
ceeded, unequalled quite in the history of man. Cats, rats, dogs, 
were soon at an enormous price ; the newly-buried Saracens were 
dug up, and their half-corrupted members devoured greedily: more 
than one mother fed upon the baby, nature intended she should 
have been suckling. That the spirit of the boldest knights should 
have sunk in such misery, is not strange ; but it is atrocious, that 
the effects of their own crimes, should have been laid at God'S 
door, whom they blasphemed, and whose injustice even the ecclesi- 
astics denounced bitterly, and refused many days to say any prayers 
to him. Here, it is likely the crusade were over but for the Prince 
of Tarentum, who forced out the soldiers, by setting fire to theif 
quarters, and thus destroying above three thousand houses, palaces^ 
and churches. 

83. 
J3ut eastward flam' d a sabre in the sky, 
Christ lent his lance, fyc. 

Par. vii. line 51 * 

A prodigy was the never-failing resource of the princes of the 
crusade. You are stuffed with them to loathing — the apparitions 
of saints and angels in every battle — the flaming sabre pointing to 
the east— the bloody meteors— the Caliph and the flying hill— the 
reiterated juggle of the lance— the ghost of Adhemar, saying, " I 
am now in Paradise after having been a short while in hell, where 



23(3 NOTES. 

iny hair and beard were much singed, for having had some doubt 
about miracles"— the sacred sheep— the spirit on Mount Olivet, and 
a thousand others. 

84. 
The burning sands, where all their sins were shriven. 

Par. vii. line 62. 

It was believed, by at least the rabble of the crusaders, that a sight 
of Jerusalem was remission of all their past offences. 

85. 
The great-Turkfard asfar'd the Amalecite. 

Par. vii. line 70* 

The recorded carnage at the taking of Jerusalem is beyond all 
credibility. Seventy thousand Mahometans, according to an Ar- 
rabian historian, perished in the temple alone: a torrent of human 
blood, carrying with it legs, arms, heads, &C. rolled impetuously 
along the streets, and as high as a horse's shoulder : nothing escaped 
from the soldier's fury— the infant Was poignarded upon its mother's 
bosom, or snatched from her, to have its brains beaten out against 
a wall — and then the crusaders washed their red hands, and march- 
ed bare-foot in procession to the holy sepulchre \ 

86. 
For him the younger chief, fyc* 

Par. viii. line 3. 

I have said, that there are different ways of explaining the va- 
rieties in the rings of the Castros. In the field of Aljubarrota, ac- 
cording to some, D. Pirez de Castro the younger, unwilling to bear 
the same pennon witli his cousin, who appeared in the Castilian 
line, demanded of the King of Portugal a new coat of arms— 
thirteen rings in a golden field. 



NOTES. 237 

D. John de Castro was the celebrated viceroy of India. 

The Castros of the river — " in silver, nine rings vermil, between 
two rivers waving in silver : crest, a half-sea-horse, white, rising 
from a wave." 

The Castros of the wheel — - a in silver, six rings azure : crest, the 
wheel of knives of St. Catharine, in memory of Don Alvaro, hav-< 
ing been armed a knight, in front of Mount Sinai, by D. Stephen de 
Gania, when he was at the Red Sea," 

87. 
Fair Inez I Fair — -alas I— fair — luckless bride / 
No rest is thine, where all have rest beside. 

Par. viii. line 1 1, 

The tale of Inez de Castro is generally known : may it be allowed 
me to recapitulate it ? — 

She was daughter of a Castillian nobleman, who had retired 
into Portugal, and she was there particularly attached to the person 
of D. Constantia, wife of the Infante D. Pedro. D. Pedro was not 
blind to the charms of the lovely Inez ; yet, during the life-time of 
the princess, he stifled his passion. It is certain, that not even Inez 
had the least suspicion of it. But the days of Constantia soon 
closed, and if any thing could have rendered the fair Castillian fairer 
in the Infante's eyes, it was the tender sorrow with which she 
mourned her mistress. 

Inez was of royal birth,* and by education too was deserving of 
a throne. After some months D. Pedro and she were privately 
married, and they lived together most happily — alas ! for no very 
long time. Both king and people became alarmed at this con- 
nexion : it was ambition in the former — in the latter a blind hatred 
of every thing not Portugese. Many alliances were proposed to the 
Infante ; but he contrived to elude them all. 



* She was D. Pedro's cousin. 



238 notes. 

The monarch resolved at length upon extremities, and selecting 
a time when his son was a wolf hunting, repaired with some con- 
federates to Coimbra. The unfortunate Inez was then in the nun- 
nery of St. Clare : it stands upon the Lisbon side of the Mondego, 
very near the palace. She had been partly brought up in this nun- 
nery ; and, always continuing to love its innocence and peace, was 
wont, during the occasional absence of her husband, to retire thither 
with her children. Informed of the king's unexpected visit — not 
to the Infante's palace ; but to her — she felt it was mysterious : 
perhaps she felt some presentiment of her fate. However that 
may be, she took her little ones, to shew them to their grandpapa, 
w ho was waiting her arrival in the " quinta," or villa, since called 
" Das kagrimas," or " the Villa of Tears." That villa still exists, and 
still retains its name : it is situated on the same side of the river as 
the convent and palace, and about a quarter of a mile from the palace 
gate. No sooner had she reached it, than she was seized, and, with 
her delicate hands bound behind her, led into the royal presence — 
w here, throwing herself on her knees with her babies, " Que ii\o 
queridos tiuha e tao mimosas," she gave occasion to the pathetic 
scene of Camoes: 

" Para o Ceo Cristalino levantandq 
Com lagrimas os olhos piedosos 
Os olhos, &c. 

The king, in turning from a sight so piteous, was not superior to 
a tiger, and, a moment hardening his nerves, he cooly assented to, 
the murder of his daughter-in-law.* After this act of horror, ant|, 



f " Contra Inez os brutos matadores 
No colo alabastro que sostinha 
As obras co que amor matou de amores 
A'quelle, que depois a fez Rainha— - 



NOTES. 239 

with clothes still besprinkled with blood, the king mounted his 
horse and rode home to dinner — " muito socegado," " very quiet- 
fy," says an historian, as if nothing had happened. 

Informed of this atrocity, B. Pedro turned furious, and, in his 
first despair, put to fire and sword the entire province of Entre- 
Douro e Minho : were it not for the queen, and the Archbishop of 
Braga, the whole of Portugal was ravaged. By them he was per- 
suaded of the cruelty of punishing a whole unoffending people, for 
the crimes of a few, and was at last reconciled to his father at 
court ; where, contrary quite to the natural candour of his cha- 
racter, he assumed a dissimulation that deceived every one. Time, 
it was thought, had dried his tears, and healed the anguish of his 
heart; his pillow remained the sole confident of an immortal 
passion : it was asserted by many, that he had solemnly sworn to 
pardon the murderers of his wife, and there were not wanting some 
who had the temerity to assign her a successor in his affections, 
The king, however, was right in bestowing considerable sums 
upon the criminals, in order to enable them to emigrate ; and, pre- 
vious to his death, they took refuge in Castille. 

It was two years from the tragedy of Inez, when D. Pedro as- 
cended the throne of Portugal. But he has little to be thankful 
for to mankind, who poisoned his existence, and have not done 
him even posthumous justice. His reign is left a blank in the 
Monarquia Lusitana — Duarte Nunez is prejudiced — and La Clede 
misinformed shamefully: the only respectable history of his life re- 
mains in manuscript. For three years did the monarch continue 
to dissemble, and seemed occupied with public affairs only. 
Among them was a very advantageous treaty with Castille : but 
in it was a secret article, stipulating, for the deliverance up of the 



As espadas banhando e as brancas flores 

Que ella dos olhos seus regadas tinha 

Se incarnicavao fervidos e irdsos 

No futuro castigo nao cuidosos." Lusiad, C. Ill, 



240 NOTES. 

three assassins, Die-go Lopez Pacheco, Alvaro Gonsalvez, and Pe* 
dro Coelho. The first, being- out hunting, received intimation of 
his danger from a beggar, with whom he changed clothes, and es- 
caped into Arragon ; the two latter were sent prisoners to Por- 
tugal. 

It was now that D. Pedro gave full rein to the feelings controlled 
for five long years, and his eyes, the first time, sparkled, since the 
loss of Inez. He had the means of vengeance in his power, and he 
exulted furiously, unboundedly. Certainly, what his victims un- 
derwent, is unparallelled in the annals of human sufferings. The 
scene of horror was the town of Santarem, where the monarch pre- 
sided at all their torments, with an almost supernatural im- 
placability. 

His banquet spread before them, he eat, he drank, he scoffed 
with the bitterest sarcasms, to see the quivering limbs of two 
wretches enduring with dreadful constancy. At one moment he 
seemed bent upon a more tremendous feast, when starting from 
table, he thrust a blazing torch in the face of the expiring man, 
and roared for vinegar and onions to eat that Coelho (rabbit.) 
Their tortures at last ended, by having their hearts cut out — one 
at his side, the other at the chest : and their bodies were publicly 
burned, and their ashes flung to the winds of heaven. 

This solemn act of vengeance, and the transports he displayed, 
would have assuaged, as it was thought, the king's sorrows: on the 
contrary, they every day grew more lively. 

Summoning the Cortes of the kingdom, he swore to his having 
been privately espoused to D. Inez de Castro in Braga, before the 
Bishop of Guarda, and his Reposteiro Mor, and these confirmed his 
declaration with their oaths. Upon this he had the deceased lady 
solemnly proclaimed queen ; he had her children legitimized, and 
he gave great riches to all who had had good fortune to have served 
her. Inez was then lifted from her grave, arrayed fondly with royal 
robes and the diadem of Portugal on her head, and she was placed 
upon the throne with a retinue of noble ladies attendant. In a 
few minutes D. Pedro arrived with Ins regalia also, and whatever 



NOTES. 241 

Was most magnificent in his court. Entering that gorgeous apart- 
ment, he made a low, but silent bow : it would have been too sad 
a mockery to have spoken, where not all the art of man could have 
produced an answer : and ascending the steps respectfully, and with 
a look of calmness, he took his seat by the corpse's side, while the 
fidalgos of the land paid it homage as their sovereign ; each in his 
turn kneeling upon both knees, and kissing its withered hand. But 
man cannot long deceive himself in spite of all : Inez was no more ; 
her cold remains must return to the sepulchre. 

In this ceremony was displayed a magnificence never before or 
since witnessed in the Peninsula. The best artists had been sought 
for through Europe, and had finished two mausoleums of virgin, 
marble and sculpture the most exquisite, in the royal burial church 
of Alcobap a. Thither the Queen of Portugal was conveyed from 
the nunnery of St. Clare, on an ivory car, followed by the nobility 
—the men in hoods, the ladies in white mantillas and trains : and, 
finally, what was the pomp may be conjectured, when we know, 
that the whole road, at least sixty-eight miles, shewed two closed 
files of soldiers, holding blazing torches, which were lighted, be- 
fore the funeral left St. Clare's, and continued burning until the 
last rites were paid at Alcobapa.* 

It was all unavailing : vengeance he found was delusive, and 
every hope he caught at; — like one unwilling to believe that ano- 
ther has the power to stab his peace of mind curelessly.f He at 



* Dona Inez left behind two sons and a daughter, from whom 
descended, immediately, the kings of Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and, 
one way or other, her blood is flowing through every royal family 
in Europe. 

f La Clede's story of D. Maria is an unworthy fiction. I know 
that D. Pedro is reputed to have had one son (D. John I.) after 
Inez' death. The best Portugese antiquarians, Fernando de Pine, 
and Manoel, de Faria, E. Sousa, think otherwise ; holding D. John's 
birth to have been early, and before his father's marriage with his 

R 



242 NOTES. 

length became convinced, thathe was single amongst men j and ni# 
comfort beyond the grave. He henceforth considered himself as 
little appertaining to the earth, and sought only to prepare for 1 the 
sky, by religious and literary occupation by advancing the welfare* 
of his people. Nor were they ungrateful for his care ; and the 
King D. Pedro is characterized as the mostperfect sovereign, that 
ever bore the Portugese sceptre. By some barbarians he has been 
misnamed " the cruel ;" but his vassals assigned him a more ho- 
nourable and well-merited title, that of " justiceiro," or " the just." 
ithat the murderers of Inez should have suffered death was most 
becoming : perhaps he endeavoured to regret the aggravated 
manner of its infliction.* Certain it is, at least, that during the re- 
mainder of his life, her memory led him to virtue only. In aim* 
siori to Iter, he adopted his device, a staf, with the motto u montrat 
iter," " it shews the way/* She was indeed the star on which he 
gazed, the real ruler of his destiny. Hence, when he frequently 
visited Alcobac,a, and sat for days, Within the tomb prepared for 
himself by her side, his people had learnt by experience that it was 
no indulgence of futile grief. He seldom returned to court with- 
out having resolved on some great good ; he had been meditating 



first wife, D. Constantia. At all events, this charge against so 
true a lover is more than very doubtful ; but even taking it as cor- 
rect, what further does it prove, than that before the calmness of his 
despair, he had for a moment tried every human mode of refuge 
from bis sufferings? It would not do ; and, so far from debauchery, 
he led a life of the most austere self-denial. La Clede, from igno* 
ranee, no doubt, does him crying injustice. 

* This is nearly certain: and the survivor of the three assassins 
is the single instance of a great criminal going unpunished during 
the reign of D. Pedro. About a year before he died he pardoned D. 
Lopez Pacheco, recalled him home, and restored his confiscated 
fortunes. 



NOTES. 243 

ch his high duties, and the best means of reforming the manifold 
abuses of his kingdom. 

If he was severe, his severity was most necessary, and always 
well directed ; for it fell only on those great villains whose example 
was most destructive to good morals, and whom other princes had 
feared to punish. If in his tine face were the indelible symptoms 
of a broken heart, yet that heart was kind to the unfortunate, and, 
when most sinking with his own unhappiness, he was only the more 
desirous that all others should be happy. He was consequently as 
beloved as he was respected, and it is almost romantic, what w& 
are told of the public sorrow at his death — when every poor man 
wept for his protector, and bade Ms children pray, for they had 
l ost a father : in fine, it is said of him, as the Romans said of Ti- 
tus, " He ought not to have been born, or he ought never have 
died." 

Don Pedro was the handsomest, most accomplished knight of 
his day : in his early youth, and when he first courted Inez, he had 
been remarkable for his dancing, and, far from sorrowful or choleric, 
was of the gayest, most unruffled temper imaginable. He Was a 
musician and poet too : some of his verses are extant. 

But all his exertions failed to control the passion rankling at mV 
heart ; he spent the remaining six years of a short reign in every 
princely virtue ; nothing cheered his desolation. He pined away, 



88. 
She, like ajlozcer, again pluctfd from its bed. 

Par. viii. line 16. 

I have said, that some of the monuments at Alcobaca escaped 
utter destruction. Among them are the two mausoleums of D. 
Pedro and his queen. They are very beautiful, and are parallelo- 
grams of about three yards in length, and eight feet high. They 
stand a yard from each other, in centre of a small chapel, off the 

r 2 



244 NOTES. 

great aisle of tlie chureh. Both are of wMte marble^ and in ?: 
similar taste ; only that of D. Inez is a little more curiously orna- 
mented. 

D. Pedro's is raised from the pavement about two feet, upon 
six couchant lions, and all its four faces or sides are exquisitely 
sculptured : the subjects scriptural. On top reclines D. Pedro 
upon his back. A giant figure, in armour, with a very profuse 
beard, and his hands in act of drawing from the scabbard a huge 
sword. He wears moorish spurs, and his feet rest upon a couch- 
ant bull-dog, with a collar and head turned up towards its master. 
There are the remains of another animal, apparently a small spa- 
niel ; but it is broken. On either side of D. Pedro kneel three 
angels, large as men, and with their broad wings, forming a very fan- 
ciful group. He is crowned, and the arms of Portugal repeated 
thirty two times, form a kind of cornice, or frame-work, round the 
upper parts of his monument. 

Donna Inez appears reclining at full length also, and crowned ; 
but above the crown is a canopy, resembling a city, of the most ela- 
borate workmanship, and so delicate, as to imitate a parcel of fine 
lace, or webs, that a breath would derange. She is in full dress, 
with a diamond necklace, and a wreath of small roses seemingly. 
Her hands are on her breast, one naked, playing with her necklace, 
the other with a glove on, and holding the glove of the naked hand. 
Her feet are concealed by her robes, and beneath them couches a 
dwindled bull-dog, that looks expiring with grief and famine. 
There were also two diminutive spaniels, but scarcely any thing of 
*hem now exists. Six great angels kneel round D. Inez, in the 
same way as round D. Pedro : two are holding on her crown — two 
are raising her shoulders from the pillow — and two bear censers 
and frank-incense boxes, such as are used in churches. There is 
a cornice of blazonry, but it consists of the arms of Portugal, and 
of the castros of the six rings alternately. The four faces of her 
monument are, if possible, still more exquisitely chiselled than the 
king's. In the lengths is represented the life of Christ, and in the 
ends his crucifixion and the last judgment. One of the blessed, 



NOTES. 245 

nearest the throne of God, was probably intended for D. Inez — the 
head is knocked off. The whole is raised, not upon lions, but upon 
six uncouth, couching", humanish figures. They miscai them 
sphinxes : they are only the same disgusting mockeries of map, &Q 
frequently seen in ancient castles. Some resemble kings, others 
monks ; but they are degradingly ugly, and with tails like ba- 
boons. They were, without doubt, intended as satirical, and full 
well did such bitter scoffing become the monarch, erecting these 
monuments in his mortal anguish, and in utter contempt of the 
weakness and villainies of his fellow-creatures. 

These beautiful specimens of art are of the whitest marble I ever 
saw, and I do not know if there be in England any thing so dehV 
cately wrought. The most elaborate parts of the imperfect chapels 
in Batalha equal them, in every thing, but the materials. 

The French let nothing escape, however sacred ; every tomb 
was broken in search of treasures. At Pombal, General Loison 
chalked upon the wall, " Respectez ce tombeau," but it did not 
prevent the poor marquez from being pulled from his coffin,* and 
losing his gilt spurs. Irretrievable injury has been done to the 
mausoleums of D. Pedrp and of Inez — the latter particularly : for 
in the hurry to get it open, not merely one hole was made, but both 
the longer sides were attacked at once, and nearly quite destroyed 
The unfortunate queen was then dragged forth, and almost dis- 
membered altogether. Having been well embalmed, she was not 
jn a decayed state : but this has been converted into a miracle, and 
one person assured me, that she looked as beautiful as if she were 
only just expired, and that a heavenly odour emanated from her 
remains, 

* This coffin, for the Marquez Pombal, the only prime minister of 
talent that Portugal has seen for centuries, never received Christian 
burial ; neither the government, nor his own heirs, have been will- 
ing to go to the expense of a little " dust to dust." He lies in 
Pombal church, covered with his pall, in the same manner as the 
day o his decease. Ingrata Patria! 



246 NOTES, 

# Assi como a bonina, que cortada 
_.,,_ Antes de tempo foi, Candida e bella 

Sendo das maos lascivas mal tratada 
Da menina, que a trouxe na capella 
Q cheiro traz perdido e a cor murchada, 
Tal esta morta a pallida donzella, 
Secas do rosto as rosas e perdida 
A branca, e viva cor co'a doc,e vida. 

1 As filhas do Mondego a morte escura 

Longo tempo chorando memorarao, 
E por memoria eterna em fonte pura 
As lagrimas choradas transformarao : 
O nomc Hie puzerao, que inda dura, 
Dos amores de Inez, que alii passarao ; 
Vede, que fresca fonte rega as flores, 
Que lagrimas sao agoa e o nome amores.^ c. iii. 

P A fonte dos amores," " the fountain of Joves," is in the garden 
of the " villa of tears." There must be some metallic nature in 
the water, which, however, is perfectly limpid and tasteless — folf 
all the stones are red : the people of Coimbra tell you with the 
queen's blood. This colour is not belonging to the stone, from 
which I broke off a bit, and found to be a greyish slate, stained on 
the surface only. It was " tne fountain of loves," that supplied 
the palace and the nunnery of St. Clare, and that still waters the 
gardens and orange-groves on the banks of the Mondego. This is 
done by means of a small stone conduit, eighteen inches wide, in 
winch was running a fresh streamlet of about two inches deep, 
when I was there. It is still called, " o cano dos amores," " con- 
duit of loves ;" and by it, they say, D. Pedro and D. Inez carried 
on their correspondence during an imprisonment which the former 
underwent for awhile, in consequence of his father's displeasure at 
his not marrying. D. Inez, living in her " villa of tears," had a 
little boat of cork, and a long string. Into this boat she put her 
Jetter, and, at an appointed hour, let it into the conduit. D. Pc- 



NOTES. 247 

dro received it in the palace, from the conduit's mouth, and D. 
Inez drew back the answer and boat with her string. 

The " fountain of loves," is now pointed out by a marble slab, 
inscribed with the latter of the above cited two strophes of Ca- 
moes. This was done by Sir N. Trant, to whom Coimbra, and 
indeed the north of Portugal, owe their existence. But the tra- 
veller must be aware, that St. Clare's nunnery was not formerly on 
the hill, where it now stands, but about half a mile nearer to the 
river. Some ruins of its church exist there : the palace is quite 
gone. The church has nothiug remarkable ; but beneath it is a 
very great curiosity. While I was there, an old woman mentioned 
that there were some arches below too ; and, upon my expressing 
a desire to see them, she smiled at my simplicity, and said they 
were full of water. The secretary of the university, who was my 
Cicerone, had never heard of any such arches, and called it all non- 
sense. At my request, however, we proceeded down, where we 
were well repaid the trouble ; for, tlirough part of a window above 
ground, we saw into another church, on which the ruined one is 
built.* This lower church is quite uninjured, excepting the being 
more than half buried in water, and it is of the very richest Sa- 
racenic architecture. 

In Coimbra they shew you some carotty locks, purporting to be 
those of D. Inez ; but they are no such thing. I have had in my 
hands her real hair, cut by' a gentleman from her head, when 
with the assistance of some peasants, he replaced her in her strait 
and violated territory : it is fine as silk, and of a light auburn. 



* A similar mode of building was resorted to at the bridge. It 
is erected upon two others, which successively sunk in the sand . 
and, before thirty years, it will be necessary to construct a fourth; 
One nunnery of St. Clare was raised upon an older one ; at last the 
" maids of heaven" preferred ascending the hills, to remaining on 
^o bad a foundation, moreover exposed to occasional inundations 
pf the Mondego. 



248 NOTES. 

89. 
His coming shines not- 



Par. viii. line 33. 



" Far off his coming shone." 

Milton. 

90. 
-that mountain, it is death to see, 



Where sorcerers yearly meet in Westphaly. 

Par. viii. line 35. 

The Brochen, famed at present for its silver and lead mines, had 
formerly a more formidable celebrity : being the great rendezvous 
of all witches and magicians. They assembled there, without fail, 
one night annually. 

But Westphaly 's most terrible meeting, was not even that upon 
the Brochen. Humanity has known no scourge so dreadful as 
" The secret and free tribunal" or " The courts of Westphaly" — at 
least if it be not equalled by the Inquisition of the present day in 
Spain. In those courts was neither accusation nor defence ; only 
a name was read, and each judge touched, in silence, a string hang- 
ing in the apartment. This was the sentence, and the convict did 
not even know he had been tried, when some one passing him pro- 
nounced the fatal words — " as good bread is eaten in other lands 
as here."* No matter what was the victim's rank, his couutry, 
character, or religion ; he had now no resource, excepting, perhaps^ 
the scarcely possible one, of escaping from all Christian territories ; 
for the members of the tribunal scattered throughout Europe and 
parts of Asia, were bound by oath, not to rest until they had hunted 
him down to death. 



Alibi ita bonus comeditur panis, ut hie.' 



NOTES. 249 

91. 

As first Lord-Chamberlain and Buffetier. 

Par. viii. line 44. 

Buffetier — " Dapifer," or Ci Trinchante," was the noblest employ- 
ment under the crown. Egas Moniz was Buffetier as well as 
" Ayo," or governor to the King D. Alfonso Henriguez. 

As in thy sorrows, when the prophet's hymn 
Wept thee, Jerusalem ! — Jerusalem ! 

Par. ix. line 4, 

" Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! convertere ad Dominum deum 

tuum." 

" Great, wonderful, and glorious things are said and written of 
thee, Jerusalem — city of God — holy — beloved !" 'Tis so old Friar 
Pantaleon begins his description. 

93. 
By Wadi's hallowed well, and Ramla's way. 

Par. ix. line G. 

" Au couchant de Jerusalem est la vallee Wadi AH, ou vallee de 
mystere."— Atlas Hist. T. 5. No. 23. 

liamla is thirty miles from the holy city, and ten from Jaffa. At 
Jaffa, Friar Pantaleon is shewed the immense stones to which An- 
dromeda was chained when Perseus saved her from the sea monster. 
" I affirm only what I know ; for I saw with mine own eyes, and 
touched with my own hands, the bases of the column she was fast- 
ened to : and they are formed of the solid rocks, that run into the 
sea, and are wrought with great curiosity of Corinthian foliage."* 

* " Com grandissima curiosidadc de folhagens de obra Corin- 
thian (Itin. da Terr. Sant. 1591.) 



250 NOTES. 

*' In Judae, between Ramla and Jerusalem, are exceeding fat 
pastures. There are palm-trees of vast revenue, and Rabbi Simeon 
asserts, u tliat he had in his garden a mustard-stalk so big, that he 
used to climb up, as into a Jig-tree." — Mem. Remarks, p. 9. 

94. 
Omar's mosque- 



Par. ix. line 20, 

There is something magnificent in the destiny, which, through, 
the changes of masters and of religion, has still kept this spot 
consecrated to divine worship. The edifice erected by Solomon, 
and rebuilt by Cyrus, perished with the Jewish people : after them 
the Christians took their turn, and Helen caused it to be raised a- 
new. Whether this building of Helen was removed by Julian, I do 
not know ; but, upon Omar's becoming possessor of Jerusalem, the 
site was vacant.* The present splendid structure was created by 
liim, and it is, after Mecca, the chief temple of Mahometanism. 
It is called the Temple of Solomon, or Omar's Mosque. Of many 
whose itineraries I have read, from Sacramento, Pantaleon, and 
the English pilgrims, down to Mons. de Chateaubriand, not one has, 
entered its interior. 

As to its exterior this is composed of a square, the eastern side 
of which, Pantaleon found a little more than six hundred paces. 

* The city capitulated, and the mussulmans committed no dis- 
order. " Omar only, with great modesty, required of the patriarch 
a spot, whereon he could build a mosque. The patriarch shewed 
him the stone of Jacob, and the spot, whereon the temple of So- 
lomon had been built ; upon which the Christians, out of hatred to 
the Jews, had been accustomed to throw their filth. Omar began 
himself to clear the ground, and his pious example was followecj. 
by the several chiefs of his army." (Asiatic Annual Re£, 1800, 
p. 108.) 



NOTES. 251 

This eastern side is of turf, with a few trees ; the three others are 
flagged, with the whitest marble, and so smooth, that when it rains 
you cannot hold your feet. In centre of this square rises a smaller 
one, which, as well as the stairs up to it, is in like manner of the finest 
white marble. Here in the middle 3 ou see the temple of Solomon, 
an octagon, very glorious and lofty. To the half way up it is 
clothed in great slabs of very exquisite marble, marvelously polish- 
ed : thence to the first moulding on top is all rich Mosaic, in many 
inventions of branches, roses, and other flowers : and the first 
moulding is a crown richly fashioned ; above which is the roof cu- 
riously shaped in form of a large thistle — but it is now covered with 
lead, like the church of the holy sepulchre. Moreover, upon its pin^ 
nacle, where Christians have a cross, there is a tail, thick bar o> 
silver, with exceeding great balls, gilded and sinning mightily, and 
above them a very large and very beauteous concave half-moon— * 
the arms of the Great Turk. 

" As to the interior of this temple," continues the Friar,* " I did 



* " Quanto ao interior deste Templo, eu o nao vi, porque a nen- 
hurn christao he licito entrar nelle . . . Digo entrar com animo de 
dar fe do que esta dentro ; mas algumas horas havendo obras que 
fazer, entrao alguns Christaos da terra, com cal pedra e area, como 
alguns me affirmarao haverem por vezes entrado : e do que soube 
destes e de alguns Mouros nossos Amigos e familiares e em parti- 
cular de hum Genizaro que tinhamos em Casa das portas a dentro 
que nos tinha dado o Grao Turco para nossa guarda a peticao do* 
Senhores Yenesianos, que sao os mais cpntinuos bemfeytores do* 
lugares da Terra Santa, o qual Genizaro era meu particular amigo, 
fallando todos de huma maneyra me affirmarao ser o Templo de 
dentro feyto ao modo de huma Claustra de Religiosos, redonda e 
feyta toda de arcos, e Columnas de finissimo marmore bianco bor- 
nido e da mesma maneyra, he pedra toda a mais fabrica, scm algu- 
ma outra pintura e de Columna a Columna enfiadas rauj tas e muy 
ricas alampadas, que ardern de continuo assim de dia como de; 



252 NOTES. 

not see it ; because it is not lawful for any Christian to enter there-? 
in. I say for the purpose of relating what it contains : but by 
seasons, there being work to be done, some Christians of the coun- 
try have entered with lime, stone, and sand, as some affirmed unto 
me, they had entered at times. And from what I learnt of them, 
and of some Moors, our friends and familiars, and in particular of a 
janissary living in our house, and whom the Grand Turk had given 
to us as our guard, at request ofjhe Venetian lords, who are the 
most continual benefactors.©! the stations of Holy Land — which ja- 
nissary was my particular friend — a!l agreeing in one manner af- 
firmed to me, that the temple within resembles a religious cloister ; 
that is, round and formed of arches and columns of the finest white 
polished marble ; and in similar style every thing else within is of 
stone, without paintings or any colouring whatever ; and, from co- 
lumn to column are hanging many and very rich lamps, that burn 
incessantly, as well by day as by night : and they affirmed to me, 
that they passed six hundred. There is in the middle of the temple 
a little elevation, like a rock, surrounded with a very rich flight of 
stairs. Of this rock, the Moors narrate divers fabulous things, 
which I will not here treat of, holding them to be false !" This de- 
scription agrees tolerably with that of Pere Roger : but there is al- 
ways the deficit complained of by Mons. Chateaubriand, and until 
we know how the columns arc disposed, it is impossible to pro- 
nounce on the architecture of the temple. 



noyte : e me affirmarao passarem de seis centas. Tern no meyo do 
Templo huma pequena altura a modo de rocha cercada de redor 
com humas grades riquissimas. Desta altura contao os mouros di- 
versas cousas flabulosas, das quaes nao quero aqui tratar, pelas ter 
porfalsas." 



NOTES. 253 

95. 

Am I not Tancred"? Is the hand forgot 

That crammed the oath down, traitor, in thy throat® 

Par x. line 17. 

The modest and high minded Tancred is immortalized by Tasso. 
He was indeed the most generous spirit of his age, and the im- 
petuosity with which he refused his homage to the emperor was 
becoming a young hero. Peter, the miserable preacher of the cru- 
sade, had been disheartened early, and had, in fact, deserted the siege 
of Antioch. Informed of this, and apprehending the effect it might 
cause among the soldiery, Tancred leaped on horseback, and over- 
look the deserter some leagues off. Publicly led back, and covered 
with every outrage and opprobrium, the wretched hermit was con- 
strained to swear, in face of the whole army, that he would accom- 
plish his vow, by never abandoning the expedition, until the holy 
sepulchre should be delivered. 

I have said, that the debauchery of the crusaders was unequalled: 
but, particularly during the first siege of Antioch. Alberon, Arch- 
deacon of Metz, and some other ecclesiastics, paid for their impru- 
dnce dearly. 

96. 
Lift but a finger 'gainst my prisoner. 

Par. x. line 35, 

Cruelty, cowardice, and fanaticism go well together. The base 
Peter, who had run away at Antioch, figured principally in the mas- 
sacres at Jerusalem, and had already irritated Tancred to the ut- 
most, by the murder of three hundred Turks, to whom the Italian 
banner had been sent as a protection. According to this miscreant 
it would have been like Saul pardoning A gag, to have spared any 
of the Saracens, and he accordingly called on the ferocious multi- 
tude to destroy the prisoners, and so " avert the anger of God !" 
The inhuman butchery was perpetrated before the eyes of Tancred, 



254 NOTES. 

and in spite of his prayers and threats. Indignant— maddened, at sd 
cowardly a breach of faith, the gallant prince was very near turn- 
ing his arms agaiust his merciless companions. 



97. 
Scarce will St Johns good Rector need our prayer *. 

Par. x. line 109. 

One Gerard was then rector of the hospital of St. John's of Je- 
rusalem— the cradle of the knights of Malta. 



93. 
And here the " Golden-gate" and temple shews 

Par. xiv. line 17. 

The celebrated Golden gate is in the eastern side of the square of 
the temple. It was of cedar of Libanon, covered with plates of 
gold, and alone survived the conflagration under Titus. Many 
are the mysteries attached to this gate ; which has for many years 
been walled up by the grand Turk. Pantaleon seems unaware 
why : — it is, for a prophecy saying, that a Christian prince shall enter 
by it — (on a Friday, I think) and retake Jerusalem. 

For the honour of the Mussulmans, I must observe, that Pan- 
taleon expressly denies that the grand Turk received a shilling of 
revenue from the holy sepulchre. An English writer says, " this 
tribute is worth to the Grand Signior 8000 ducats yearly." Such 
ideas, the friar says, are absurd, H the truth being that, at no 
period did the tax amount to ,£350 a year; nor was this laid 
on originally by the Saracens, but by the Christians ; and, when the 
great Turk took Jerusalem from the Soldan of Egypt, he highly 
disapproved of such a custom, and he was induced to continue it 
solely because it was a Christian practice ; but every crusado of that 



NOTES. 255. 

money teas ever (as it still is) employed in the support of an hospital 
for the poor"* 

99. 
And soon they come, where many a lovely land* 

Par. xiv. line 19. 

The territory of Judea was never very generally fertile, even 
in the best days of Israel: but we should not believe all Palestine 
to be in the state of barrenness that Mons. Chateaubriand describes t 
between Jerusalem and Saba, and the Dead Sea. On the contrary, 
nothing is more lovely than many spots towards the North, through- 
out Samaria and the Galilees. Sacramento in his " Viagem Santa" 
tells you of the plains of Esdrelon, eight leagues long by five wide, 
being richer and better cultivated than the finest parts of his native 
country. Mr. Biddulph also found the Galilees extreme pleasant, 
and so besprinkled with variety of flowers among the green grass, 
that they seemed to smile in their faces, and as it were to laugh and 
sing, as the psalmist expresses it. 



* " E porque a opiniao de muytes Christaos destas partes he 
que, O Grao Turco consente serem visitados estes santos lugares, 
pelo interesse que delles tern como eu algumas vezes tenho auvido 
dixer : saybao os que, isto lerem que nao he tal cousa, porque O 
interesse por muyto que fosse, em nossos tempos nunca chegou 
a tres mil cruzados, e todos os tributos que se levao, sc gastao em 
hum hospital de Pobres. Nem O Grao Turco poz estes tributos, 
antes os puzerao os Christaos, no tempo que a Terra Santa era sua; 
e O Grao Turco quando tomou a terra ao soldao do Egypto re- 
provou muito aquellc mao costume ; mas deyxou-o near por Ihe 
aflirmarem que os Christaos O haviao posto e ordenado e nao por 
outro respeyto." (Itin. p. 113.) 



250 



NOTES, 



100. 
Crum's ravaged Dines are black by turns and green. 

Par. xiv. line 22* 

North and north-west of Jerusalem, says the geographer fcus- 
clung. (T . viii. p. 289.) is the valley of Cram ; it has beauteous fields 
and laughing gardens, shaded by olive, fig, apricot, and almond 
trees: it is the most agreeable spot in the environs of the city. 

101. 
And verdant Carmell, where the sailors tell 
Of Gazelles drinking by Elijah's well. 

Par. xiv. line 20* 

Mount Carmell is four leagues north-west of Thabor. The sea 
washes its feet ; and so majestically docs it rise, that Pantaleon dis- 
covered it shortly after leaving Cyprus, long before any other part 
of the coast was visible. Innumerable flocks of sheep, goats, Ga- 
zelles, wander along its ever verdant sides ; all the bravest game, 
hare, partridge, quail, are in abundance for hawking or for hunt- 
ing ; the olive and the laurel arc on its declivities ; the pine and oak 
shadow its summits ; springs every where are seen bubbling, and 
streams seen running — principally towards the lovely dales and 
bills that lie between the villages of Bustan and Deii. 

There, too, is the fountain of Elijah ; its water is sweet and 
limpid. Sacramento tells of many ruins of edifices, superb palaces 
and churches, that he found on mount Carmell : there was a city, 
there, as he says, erected by St. Helen. 

This lady was the greatest builder I have heard of, and, beside 
the temple and holy sepulchre, erected about 150 great churches, 
convents, and cities, in Holy Land* According to the " Two Eng- 
lish Pilgrims," she was daughter to King Coel, who built Col- 
chester, and called it by his name. '* But the friars denied it. 7> 
(p. 73.) 



NOTES. 257 

91. 

Favor' d of summits! How from Tabor's height 
The -varied zcorld is laid before the sight! 

Par. xiv. line 47. 

" Tabor mons est pulcherrimus in medio Gallilaeae campo mira 
rotunditate ex omni parte equaliter finitus ; cujus altitiido 30 
stadiis consurgens que in mare navigantibus procul spectanduin, 
se exhibit accensu difficiles et septentrionali tractu inaccaesa est : 
in vertice autem, viginti sex stadiorum campestris planicieo patet : 
estque coeli temperie saluberrimus vineis olivis variisque arbustis 
et fructiferis arboribus totus undique consitus rore perpetuo irrigus 
arborum frondibus versesicoloribus herbis semper vividis atque suavi 
omnigenum florum odore fragrantissiinus." (Adrich. Theatrum, 
TeiTe sancte p. 149.) 

102. 
— Liba?ion, where most the cedar grows. 

Par. xiv. line 54. 

u About four in the afternoon we set forward for mount Libanon, 
and two hours riding from Tripoly, pitched our tent at the village 
Coffersinue. The road to this village is very pleasant, through a 
forest of olive trees, and in the valleys and gardens are mulberries 
for the silk- worms. About nine next morning we came to Eden, 
a small village, and very pleasantly seated. We went to the bi- 
shop's house, a most miserable ruinated cottage, who, coming to 
bid us welcome, appeared more like a dunghill raker than a bishop. 
We enquired whence the village had its name ? The Maronites, 
who inhabit the mountains, say, this was the place where Adam 
committed the sin of eating the forbidden fruit ; but the bishop 
told us it was in heaven, where were three trees, Adam being for- 
bidden to eat one of them, which was the fig-tree: but after 



*258 NOTES. 

having eaten, lie fell down from heaven among those cedars, which 
arc two hours* riding from the bishop's house, and there began to 
till the ground : but the bishop being very ignorant, we forebore to 
enquire farther. About five in the morning we rose from thence, 
and about eight came to the cedars, all that remain of them being 
in a very small compass. We spent some time in cutting sticks, 
and setting our names to the great trees." (Journey to Jeru. by 
fourteen English, in 1669.) 



Alas! the Oriflamb may never fly I 

Par xv. line 34. 

This redoubted standard is known to every one. I cannot tell 
whether it was in the first crusade. Since it had been a present 
from heaven to Cloris, or Charlemagne, it was of course uncon- 
querable, and it always held the front of battle. When the Ori- 
flamb was reared, not even the king's banner was accounted of: in- 
deed, it was no longer called banner, but simply, a royal pennon.'' 
The most brilliant of the flowers of chivalry were selected to com- 
pose the small squadron that guarded the Oriflamb, and the ho- 
nour of carrying it was esteemed as flattering as that of chief com- 
mander. 

Since all the confidence of the soldiery was attached to it, it was 
very necessary that it should be bravely borne, and even in retreat 
should still face the enemy. 

" C'est le serment que fait le chevalier a qui le roi bailie l'Ori- 
flamme a porter. Vous jurez et prommettez sur le precieux, corps 
de J. C. sacre ci present et sur le corps de Monscigneur St. Denis 
et ses compagnons q'ici sont que vous loyalement en votre personne 
tendrez et gouvernerez l'Oriflamme du roi monseigneur qui ci 
est, k l'honneur et profit de lui et son royaume ; et pour doute de 
mort ne autre avanture qui puisse venir ne la delaisserez et ferez 
partout votre devoir comme un bon et loyal Chevalier doit fairc, 
&c." (Du Gang.) 



NOTES. 250 

103. 
-some virgin of the light 



For ever by the diamond-table given, 

Par. xv. line 47. 

" There, says the Prophet (in Paradise) are to be found as many 
goblets as are stars in the firmament. The angel Gabriel shall 
open the gates to his faithful Mussulmans. The first thing seen 
shall be a diamond-table, that seventy thousand years would be 
necessary to walk round. Then shall each believer receive a le- 
mon, in the instant of raising it to his nose, to taste of the 
perfume, there shall spring from it a girl of ravishing beauty : he 
shall embrace her with transport, and that very drunkenness of 
love shall endure for fifty years without interruption. Thence shall 
the happy couple pass into their eternal palace, where shall be eat- 
ing and drinking, and all sorts of delight for ever. Amen. 



104. 
Thy child — thy lover goes 



Par. xvii. line 96. 

" Nature put on mourning. Thy child, thy lover, draweth near 
his end." (Werter). 



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